Williams' Compensation revisited - Nice deal

[SemperParatus]

Just do it with honor and fall on your Swiss Army Tinker

 

Only $14.99 from scouter.com

[rpushies]

jkhny,

 

So how much should the Chief Scout Executive receive as compensation for his services in your opinion?

 

Yours Turly in Scouting,

Rick Pushies

[Prairie_Scouter]

OGE,

Just don't do it on a Scout outing. Too much paperwork.

 

"Scouter kills self with Scout pocket knife. Nearby leader heard to say,"if that guy had a Whittlin' Chit, I'd be cutting a corner off of it RIGHT NOW".

[NJCubScouter]

lol Semper. Operators are standing by, I'm sure. And if you survive your knife wound, while you are recovering you can watch your new DVD of Follow Me Boys starring Fed MacMurrary, Best Price $15.99 at the Scouter Catalog!

[jkhny]

Now,now, no point in Scouters serving real units depleting the ranks further....

 

As for appropriate compensation......plot a normal curve for non-profit CEO compensation of a similar size. See where he falls - and I'll bet it's NOT in the lower half by any means. Based on continuous declines in membership under his leadership, he goes at -1 standard deviation on the curve. Keep in mind he's gotten some nice raises, despite falling membership. Does anyone think he deserves to be one of the HIGHEST paid non-profit CEOS's, does he even deserve "Average"? What's the consensus?

 

And I don't see anyone arguing that funds would NOT be better spent at a far more local level on imroving DE salaries and ranks.

 

 

Actually, a very public and symbolic changing of the guard is in order right now. Symbolic sacrifice IS in order, and I think Williams could make a less drastic honorable gesture himself and simply quit. We're not Samauri. It would show some honor and an acknowledgement that ther eare problems he has not been able to fix.

 

After all the Atlanta SE said "I'm in charge, it happened on my watch, I take responsibility" and quit.

 

 

Besides....it's downright embarassing to be CEO of BSA right now - youth protection head distributing kiddie porn, enrollment scandals....even the "Be Prepared" fiascos at Jamboree....Williams won't even face the press....he hides in HQ

 

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

If Roy's job were open and only advertised to those here at the Scouter Network, would anybody take it? If so, then what are your qualifications?

 

The ad: Run a large corporation with thousands of employees scattered all over the nation that are backed by multi-thousands of volunteers. Attract large donors and work with hundreds of United Ways to make the yearly budget. Attend court cases by the hundreds each year while being made liable for every infraction real or imagined by any person inside or outside the business. Make policy and keep a diverse population satisfied with anything that they believe is wrong. If an employee is found guilty of a crime, be ready to take the blame. Eat chicken dinners 100 times or more per year and sit on boards listening endlessly to people tell you how it could be done better. Fly all over the country and the world and sleep in far away places. Get your picture in the next edition of the BSHB and smile like you are enjoying it.

 

[jkhny]

"lol Semper. Operators are standing by, I'm sure. And if you survive your knife wound, while you are recovering you can watch your new DVD of Follow Me Boys starring Fed MacMurrary, Best Price $15.99 at the Scouter Catalog! "

 

 

 

You know I loved that movie...the Capra-esque idealism....a life thought wasted is shown to have had purpose and a goal defferred finally achieved...a boy redeemed...makes you all teary

 

I loved it when Fred MacMurray finally got his case in court and fought the attempt by the weaselly nephwe to get control of the Scout camp that the old lady had left to Boy Scouts..... She knew what she was doing and she wanted that property left to Boy Scouts to benefit boys....

 

Well, Fred proved the old lady was competent and the nephew was a conniving weasel focused only on money.....

 

Happy ending. Scouts got the camp.

 

Flash forward. Old lady leaves Boy Scouts her marvelous property on Long Island Sound. She wants to expand the facilities available to Scouts locally - give them access to the water. Boy Scouts is thrilled. This is valuable property - surrounded by mansions and beach clubs. The local Council builds a new Scout Center with a pool, indoor rooms, docks and indoor facilities for storing and working on boats. She even gave tehm money to do that. Scouts had swim nights there, learned lifesaving, boating, sailing even scuba diving. Events were held there. Cub Scout day camp was held there every summer. And best of all, the facility came with a trust fund for maintenance and upkeep. It was self supporting. The place became a community asset. The local High School swim team used the pool and other groups paid to use the facilities. The place actually added money to Council coffers. The Beach Clubs are for the wealthy - but this place is for all. But Councils folded and merged.

 

Flash forward and this facility is in danger of being sold - taken away from the Scouts that use it. This irreplaceable facility has become even MORE valuable over the years. It's worth MILLONS of dollars. Developers with more Mansions in mind covet the property. But BSA will never be able to replace this facility. Scout leaders fight against the sale in court. The sale violates terms of the bequest but the wording of the will allows legalistic weaseling around the terms.

 

But this time it is BOY SCOUTS - the Council Scout Executive himself - taking the facility away from Scouts. He feels that an algae filled lake, surrounded by rocks - 45 minutes away - will be an "equivalent" facility. A sale "bosts the bottom line and leaves our Council stronger financially." Of course we'd be in stronger shape if everyone hadn't stopped giving to FOS to protest HIS behavior. He messes things up and sells off property to make up for it...gotta love that style of management.

 

No happy ending.

 

The same questionable "analysis" used to justify a camp sale only a few years earlier (for half the expected price to the neighbor of the then Scout Executive) was used here. It is a common corporate technique to let facilities run down, deliberately NOT use them and then sell them because they are too costly to fix and underutilized. And far too often the buyer pays less than the real value of the property....with relationships unexplored and uninvestigated.......

 

Warning.....warning....flashing red lights.....

 

 

[Trevorum]

But Fuzzy, you gotta remember that Roy gets 40 hours a week, while WE only get ONE hour ...

 

[rpushies]

jkhny

 

Very interesting. You wrote, "As for appropriate compensation......plot a normal curve for non-profit CEO compensation of a similar size. See where he falls - and I'll bet it's NOT in the lower half by any means." Based on your answer, I'll bet you really don't know as much about this topic as you would expect us to believe that you do. If you actually knew that answer and shared it with us, I would have been impressed. More conjecture does not impress me.

 

Yours Truly,

Rick Pushies

 

[jkhny]

Williams is doing VERY well even without the deferred compensation - and keep in mind that he's in Irving Texas, NOT NY, Chicago or LA.

 

2003 Williams Recap - $433,830 salary, $10,336 auto, $11,026 Life Insur $23,127 contr to pension and $434,874 deferred compensation

 

His salary is far above the average cited below for non-profits(which includes some very well paid foundation heads) and he received a 12% increase in 2003 (three times the average increase noted below).

 

And what kind of raise did YOU get in 2003? I bet Williams' $45,039 - salary increase alone - is more than some volunteers earn in a year. TOTAL compensation went up by 25% - $183,599 and I KNOW that's more than the average Scouter earns.

 

Putting things in perspective, in response to all the comments about "responsibilities" - All but one of the National CONGRESSIONAL leadership of the US doesn't earn NOW what the INCREASE in Williams' compensation was from 2002 to 2003.

 

Senate Leadership

Majority Leader - $175,600

Minority Leader - $175,600

House Leadership

Speaker of the House - $203,000

Majority Leader - $175,600

Minority Leader - $175,600

 

 

Regarding NON-Profits, From the Chronicle of Philanthropy:

 

http://philanthropy.com/free/articles/v15/i24/24002701.htm

 

In 2003:

 

A point made at the end of this article is appropriate:

 

" Gary D. Bass, executive director of Focus Project, better known as OMB Watch, a Washington advocacy group, also expresses concern about the trend in nonprofit salaries.

 

"We do not want to have a brain drain from the nonprofit sector because of just purely a monetary issue, but by the same token, the nonprofit sector is not the for-profit sector," he said. "I don't think we need to pay someone $350,000 to get the best and the brightest."

 

As far as SALARIES alone go:

 

"The chief executives of the 235 organizations that responded to The Chronicle's survey both last year and this year received a median salary increase of 4.3 percent in 2002. That means the compensation of half the executives in the survey grew by more than that figure. The median increase was down from 7.5 percent in 2001 but was nearly twice the 2002 inflation rate of 2.4 percent.

 

The median salary last year for all chief executive officers in the survey was $285,000. Chief executives at private foundations earned a median salary of $402,-821, compared with $282,712 for charity CEOs.

 

The organizations included in the survey were selected primarily from The Chronicle's 2002 Philanthropy 400 list of nonprofit groups that raised the most money in private donations. Also included were the nation's 50 wealthiest private foundations, with assets ranging from $207-million to $24-billion, and the 20 largest operating foundations."

 

 

Also in this coverage:

 

"Deferred compensation is not the only form of pay that has sparked backlashes. Concern over some private foundations' financial practices, including the view that some foundations pay excessive compensation to their top executives and trustees, has led to proposed legislation that would, among other things, limit the amount of top officials' salaries that may be counted toward the required 5-percent distribution of foundation assets annually."

 

I stand by my contention. BSA National leadership is OVERPAID

Enough facts? I got flamed for saying TOO much before so I was limiting the information.....

 

Bigger issue - Should the money be going to the generals who are losing battles or funding more and better soldiers? IS BSA getting their moneys worth out of current national leadership - from this and other accounts, NO.

 

THAT is my point in this posting line. And there is NO direct accountability by BSA leadership to its membership on this or any other serious issue.

 

ANd responding to an earlier query - the current President of the Red Cross has total Comp coming in at $468,000 for 60 hours a week.

 

 

[jkhny]

This article - from 2001 - (sent to me by another who seems to have wondered about all this) puts Williams compensation THEN at the TOP of the category Boy Scouts was in.

 

And it went up substantially fromm 2001 to 2003 and has undoubtedly gone up more since.

 

 

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0377/is_2001_Wntr/ai_69411632

 

 

"Are nonprofit CEOs overpaid?

Public Interest, Wntr, 2001 by Peter Frumkin

 

Save a personal copy of this article and quickly find it again with Furl.net. It's free! Save it.

THE nonprofit sector has acquired a black eye in recent years. Financial scandals at the United Way, NAACP, Adelphi University, and the Baptist and Presbyterian Churches have shaken public confidence in the stewardship of charitable organizations. As money flows in and out of nonprofit organizations at record levels, the question of how much their CEOs should earn has become a major issue.

 

One recent survey of compensation levels in 246 large nonprofit organizations found that the average salary was $207,990. Twenty-five CEOs earned more than $400,000; 114 earned between $200,000 and $399,999; 77 earned between $100,000 and $199,999; and 30 earned less than $100,000. At the high end in their respective fields were the president of Sloan Kettering Cancer Center ($1,077,500), the president of the University of Pennsylvania ($529,677), the CEO of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation ($389,327), the general director of the San Francisco Opera ($425,000), the executive director of the American Olympic Committee ($483,665), and the Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America ($388,845). At many of the organizations, an employee other than the CEO was the highest compensated, including the chairman of the cardiothoracic surgery department at Cornell University ($1,731,922), the football coach for the University of Southern California ($750,000), and the music director of the National Symphony Orches tra ($829,916). As a whole, salaries in the nonprofit sector rose slightly faster last year than those in the business sector, reflecting the belief that charities need to "catch up" with what for-profit firms pay their leaders."

 

[Bob White]

So which employees of the non profit organizations do you feel are over-paid. And who do you suppose is responsible for determining their salaries?

 

 

[FScouter]

"If Roy's job were open and only advertised to those here at the Scouter Network, would anybody take it? If so, then what are your qualifications?"

 

Let's promote a DE and give him a 10% raise. Would that help?

[Prairie_Scouter]

Whether a person is being overpaid is largely a matter of how you calculate their value, I think. I would think that the success of the organization that they lead would have to be near the top of the list. And how do you measure that? From the perspective of the Board, you'd have to figure that they would consider Scouting to be doing well because BSA has at least the appearance of having a strong balance sheet (I have read quotes to that effect, although BSA doesn't appear to publish the financials in the Annual Report, which is quite unusual; I assume that they publish this information somewhere else). However, membership continues to fall, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of innovation going into stopping the outflow. At least, you don't see a lot of public information as to what BSA National is doing. For example, Mr Williams himself in a 2000 interview said that BSA would readdress the issue of gay inclusion if membership numbers were falling. And they appear to be, but I haven't seen anything publicly available that says that they are re-assessing policies which have the potential to affect membership levels.

 

Regards salary, my experience with this is that the Executive Committee of the organization makes a recommendation to the Board, who then has the final say so on salary levels. In larger organizations, the Exec Comm might be backed up by a compensation committee that does the research to determine an appropriate salary to retain a chief executive. The creation of the salary for a non-profit has a number of components and the weight of these depends on the non-profit. In some cases, it is primarily the ability of the chief executive to solicit funding. In general, tho, there is a measurement of salaries of comparable organizations, ie, their "peers". If they are attempting to land a new chief executive, there will be an assessment of how much of a premium would be needed to get them on board. At these size organizations, tho, there isn't a "table of salaries" to go to. It's very much a subjective system, and very prone to over-pricing in the Board's quest to get the person they want. You don't very often see a board "low-balling' salary if they're trying to get/keep the person they want.

[jkhny]

Compensation for Nonprofit CEOs in the US: Where the Donation Buck Stops (1/31/03)

By Marie Michael, OP, Adrian Dominican Sisters

 

 

In a 2000 survey of nonprofits, the median CEO compensation, including cash benefits, was $75,000. The salaries above the median, however, bring the excesses in CEO pay to light. Predictably, the larger the organization, the more robust the CEO pay - and the more money diverted away from programs. In June 2001, the St. Petersburg Times reported that the CEO of

Neighborly Senior Services was paid $162,000 - well above the $82,600 cap imposed by the state of Florida on nonprofits receiving government funds. "We're not driven by the dollars, we're not driven by profits, we're driven by the mission," the CEO told the Times. But while he was requesting reimbursements for extravagant expenses (dinner at Philadelphia's exclusive LeBec-Fin Restaurant, for $164.46), the agency was laying off over 100 workers because of "budget woes."

The worst offenders are large foundations, hospital systems and universities. In the Chronicle of Philanthropy 2000 Salary Survey, median CEO pay in the top 215 privately-funded nonprofits stood at $200,000-$300,000. Sixty of those organizations had allocated over $400,000 annually to CEOs, and the top six had handed over more than $1 million apiece. In 1999, Catholic Healthcare West, operating 47 hospitals, poured out $2.1 million on just two employees.

 

Charitable to Whom?

The term "nonprofit" covers 27 different categories of organizations. At one time, nonprofits were viewed as charities that helped poor people and relieved suffering, but that is not the reality today. The National Rifle Association Foundation and the Massachusetts-based engineering defense contractor, Mitre Corporation are nonprofits, and not charities. And, groups that traditionally have served the poor are shifting services. In an exhaustive survey of human service organizations, nonprofit expert Lester Salamon found that 53% had few or no poor clients, and only 27% focused their mission on the poor.

 

One example of this shift in service is the YMCA, a former source of refuge for inner-city homeless people and poor travelers, turned spa/health club provider. Economist David Wagner reports that, when the Philadelphia Y sold its residence halls - evicting 300 people - it received

$13 million, all of it tax-exempt. "Renting rooms is no longer part of the Y mission," said the Y's president, in announcing the multimillion-dollar renovation of the Central Branch. "Our emphasis today is health enhancement."

 

Distributive Justice

Increasingly, nonprofit boards search the for-profit sector for CEOs, pushing up nonprofit CEO compensation. Between 1990 and 2000, for-profit executive pay skyrocketed by 571% - towering 531 times above the average worker's pay, according to a joint study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy (UFE).

 

What would be a more just salary for nonprofit CEOs? UFE, University of California economist John Isbister, and others propose a salary ratio of 8:1. Based on that ratio, if the lowest-paid employee earned the minimum wage - $10,712 per year - the highest-paid employee would earn $85,696. If a nonprofit wanted to pay the CEO more, it would have to lift up those on the bottom in order to do so - a true rising tide that lifts all boats! But as Isbister points out, "If we are to have any chance of moving in the direction of a just income distribution, government intervention is the main tool we have."

 

Caveat Emptor!

Where is your donation dollar going? To find out, go to www.guidestar.org and review any organization's Form 990, listing the top five compensations. Another helpful resource is Robin Hood Was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money for Social Change, which identifies foundations that work to tip the power scale in favor of a decent living for all people and are demanding "change, not charity" in working to eradicate the conditions that create the need for charity in the first place!

 

Sources:

 

www.guidestar.org

 

The Chronicle of Philanthropy 2000 Salary Survey, http://philanthropy.com

 

Chuck Collins and Pam Rogers, with Joan P. Garner, Robin Hood was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money for Social Change (W.W. Norton, 2000).

 

John Hawks, For a Good Cause: How Charitable Institutions Become Powerful Economic Bullies (Carol Publishing Group, 1007).

 

Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, "Executive Excess 2001," 8th Annual CEO Compensation Survey (Aug. 28, 2001). www.ufenet.org/press/2001/EE2001.pdf

 

John Isbister, Capitalism and Justice: Envisioning Social and Economic Fairness (Kumarian Press, 2001).

 

Steven Langer, Compensation of Chief Executive Officers in Nonprofit Organizations, 13th ed. (Abbott, Langer & Associates, Inc., Oct 2000).

 

Lester Salamon, America's Nonprofit Sector (Foundation Center, 1999).

 

The Urban Institute, National Center for Charitable Statistics, "Nonprofit Fact Sheets," http://nccs.urban.org

 

David Wagner, What's Love Got to Do with It? A Critical Look at American Charity (New Press, 2000).

 

© 2003 Center for Popular Economics