NY Gay Center's New ED's Salary Disclosed
The New York City gay community center last week announced the hiring of Glennda Testone as the new executive director, replacing Richard Burns, who ran the center for more than twenty-years. I noticed that the release, which was put out by Cathy Renna's communications firm, that Testone's salary was omitted, so I emailed Cathy over a couple of days for more information.
Testone's pay is pegged at $175,000, and regarding any contractually deferred compensation or contributions to her 401K plan, and how much the head-hunting firm of Philips Oppenheim was compensated to secure Testone's services, here's the scoop from Cathy:
Testone comes to the gay center after a few years at the Women's Media Center in New York City, where, according to the 2007 IRS 990 filing for the group, she earned $107,923. Taking the new position equals a nice jump in pay for her.
Her contract includes same benefits as for all other employees. Since the Center doesn’t know what their final bill from [Philips Oppenheim] will be, they cannot answer. When required to put in the [IRS] 990’s, they will.
BTW, the 2008 tax filing for the gay center shows that Burns total compensation package was $233,330.
Related to this, I was surprised that Cathy's firm was handling the p.r. for the Testone hire, because I was under the impression the center had its own communications department. I asked Cathy to disclose how much she was being paid to take care of p.r. tasks on this, and she declined.
In a perfect world, our gay institutions would freely embrace full transparency and without asking or prodding, would disclose basic information such as the salary and compensation package of all executive level personnel when press releases are issued about new hires.
What about Testone's political affiliation? Based on her $250 donation in 2008 to Barack Obama, I think it's safe to say Testone is a Democrat. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with that, and I speak as a registered Green Party voter, but I wonder if her political affiliation will equal patronage and favors for Democratic Party politicians and causes. Sure hope not because it's better to keep such centers free of any strings to any party.
Finally, all of the blogger and gay press attention for Testone's hire omitted any mention about her salary. Many outlets and blogs simply ran the whole release from Cathy, or big chunks of it. The Advocate reworked the release, with no new info, and I'm left to ponder why so many news sources failed to go beyond the release and ask a basic question: What's the new ED's salary?
As readers of the Bay Area Reporter very well know, whenever one of San Francisco's gay or AIDS nonprofits hires a news top-level person, the BAR asks and reports on that person's salary. Click here and here for past BAR articles that prove my point.
There are valuable lessons to be learned from the BAR's coverage of our groups, lessons I hope other newspapers and bloggers heed - ask a few questions about compensation.
4 comments:
$175,000? Wow. With that alone, I can resolve alot of problems.
The cost of living is high in NYC. I think it is a competitive salary.
I would like to know how much the Center is paying their own press representative...
If he or she is not to be trusted with putting out a simple press release about the appointment of a new Executive Director - how difficult can that be? - he or she is plainly not capable of handling the far more detailed issues and situations that are going to come up. He or she is therefore being paid far too much, whatever the sum, and should be released to pursue other career opportunities elsewhere (as press reps like to say)..
Of course it may be that New York's Gay Center feels that it can be much better served going forward by outsourcing press work to a business based in DC???
Cathy is smart, but it does not exactly require outside brain power to A) write a press release, B) ship it out and C) get on the horn. If it does, get a new press person on staff. In this economy, there's plenty of top-drawer talent at bargain basement prices.
Outside smarts are sometimes essential: fresh eyes for a new campaign, for example, or extra capacity when managing a big annual meeting. Getting a release out about a new hire is rote stuff.
In this climate, and on the heels of what I've heard are Center "fiscal challenges," this was a highly questionable expenditure.
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