Report: Executives at Publicly-Funded Nonprofits Make Big Bucks Serving the Needy

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A report by SEIU 721's Center for Public Accountability identifies at least six publicly-funded Los Angeles County nonprofits that pay their chief executives more than $300,000 per year

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- SEIU Local 721 released a report today showing that at least six publicly supported Los Angeles County health or human service nonprofit charities paid their chief executives more than $300,000 per year.

The report, by the Center for Public Accountability at SEIU Local 721, found that the groups, all of them less than 1/100th the size of the Los Angeles Unified School District, pay their CEOs significantly more than the $250,000 the Superintendent of Schools Ramon Cortines receives to run the $13 billion-per-year LAUSD.

Organizations named in the report include:

-- Mission City Community Network, a $7 million a year, private, nonprofit, San Fernando Valley-based public health clinic, pays Nik Gupta $531,000 annually. The organization provides medical services to the indigent and uninsured, and reports receiving about $700,000 a year from non-government sources, including "receipts from patients." -- The Children's Home Society of California, which pays its president, James T. Spradley Jr., $467,000. He runs a $100 million a year organization that reports 95 percent of its funds come from state and local governments.

-- ChildNet Youth and Family Services, which paid its president, Robert Di Stefano, $451,000 to run a $22 million a year organization in fiscal year 2007-2008. The organization uses government funds mainly to place children in foster homes and provide counseling to children and their families.

The charities' CEO pay also exceeds the usual $196,000 federal limit on how much of a non-profit executive's salary can be paid with federal funds. Officials of Los Angeles County, which often serves as a pass through for federal money, say they rely on federal authorities to assure compliance with this standard. A nonprofit can easily get around the standard by reporting that private funds -- including tax-exempt donations or fees paid by poor clients seeking services -- are used to pay the portion of executive's salary which exceeds $196,000.

Go to www.AccountableCalifornia.org for a list of all Southern California nonprofit executives named in the report. All compensation data used in this report was compiled by Guidestar ( www.guidestar.org ) from public tax returns (Forms 990) that nonprofits are required to file.

About SEIU Local 721 and the Center for Public Accountability

SEIU Local 721 represents more than 80,000 county and city employees across Southern California, including Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties and numerous cities in the region, as well as employees of special districts and publicly-funded non-profits such as health clinics.

SEIU Local 721 members created the Center for Public Accountability to help make government work better for Californians and improve the quality and cost effectiveness of public services through original investigative research and analysis. For more information, visit www.AccountableCalifornia.org .

SOURCE SEIU LOCAL 721

2009-10-27 16:55:00