N.Y. State Panel to Examine Nonprofit Executive Pay

The State of New York will form a committee to investigate compensation for top officials at nonprofit organizations that receive government money, The New York Times says.

Announcing the committee on Wednesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said nonprofits had “a special obligation to the taxpayers that support them” to use their government money “to help New Yorkers, not to line their own pockets.”

The governor cited what he termed the “startlingly excessive” pay for nonprofit officials, including two brothers who headed a Medicaid-financed organization that runs group homes for the developmentally disabled, whom The Times previously reported made as much as $1-million each a year.

The panel, which will include New York’s inspector general and secretary of state, will audit nonprofit pay and recommend rules to curb “excessive salaries and compensation.”

Doug Sauer, head of the New York Council of Nonprofits, said he supported rooting out cases in which charities use their resources for executives’ “personal gain” but that the task force should also look at pay for the leaders of for-profit state contractors.

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