Gov. Cuomo this week announced a long-overdue crackdown on “nonprofit” groups that use taxpayer cash to fund their bosses’ to-die-for salaries.
He’s assembled a task force to look at those pay packages and figure out which are justified — and which plainly aren’t.
Good for him.
The Post has reported on countless cases of mind-numbing pay deals for top brass at nonprofits — all pretty much on the taxpayers’ dime. Never mind that a nonprofit group is supposed to be a place where staff is motivated by a desire to provide charitable services, not to get rich.
“Executives at these not-for-profits should be using the taxpayer dollars they receive to help New Yorkers, not to line their own pockets,” Cuomo said.
He’s right. Indeed, it’s bad enough when any subsidized group deceives donors by letting staff make off with hefty profits disguised as salaries. But those feasting at the public trough have, as Cuomo put it, “a special obligation to the taxpayers.”
Just how exorbitant can some of these salaries get? Consider:
*In May, we cited the $1.6 million paydirt comp package that Wildlife Conservation Society head Steven Sanderson receives.
*We noted the nearly $1 million that went to New York Botanical Garden boss Gregory Long.
*There was $900,000 for Metropolitan Museum of Art boss Thomas Campbell.
*And nearly $2 million that Lincoln Center chief Reynold Levy got.
Some of the ugliest abuse, of course, comes courtesy of lawmakers who steer public bucks, through a “member item” or pork-barrel system, to nonprofits that hire friends, relatives or even themselves.
In recent years, The Post has reported some real stunners. Topping the list: Pols like Assemblyman/Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez, Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council’s founder. The council, which relies heavily on public cash, pays big bucks to Lopez’s girlfriend and campaign treasurer, who run the place.
Also: The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, whose boss, Willie Rapfogel, is married to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s chief of staff.
Silver makes sure the council gets ample public funding: Tax forms for its 2008-09 fiscal year list some $14 million in “government grants” — about half its total revenue.
Rapfogel’s share? A whopping $409,916 in salary, deferred pay and “nontaxable benefits.” Some poverty group, huh?
Meanwhile, The New York Times this week reported sky-high pay at groups that provide Medicaid services. It cited two brothers, Philip and Joel Levy, who ran one agency, earning millions and even billing the group for personal expenses, like their kids’ college costs.
Other Medicaid-provider honchos got more than $500,000 apiece.
Ideally, as we’ve written, we’d scrap the pork-barrel system, or at least ensure that no pol can channel public funds to themselves, their friends or relatives.
Meantime, though, Cuomo’s crackdown is a welcome start.
It’s long past time to give the first three letters of “nonprofit” some meaning.