Opinion: ‘Insider-itis’ Behind Big Nonprofit Payouts

Deals such as an $8.6-million severance package for a former Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO are a product of the “insider-itis” common on high-level nonprofit boards, a Boston Globe columnist says.

The payout for Cleve L. Killingsworth, the health organization’s CEO, was in line with his contract, but it “can be understood in the context of the insular crew of movers and shakers who run Boston’s nonprofit world,” Joan Vennochi writes.

She notes that Mr. Killingsworth was a campaign donor to Gov. Deval Patrick and other senior Massachusetts Democratic politicians. What’s more, she says, several members of Blue Cross who approved his contracts have close ties to the Patrick administration and major nonprofit institutions.

She also says the same kind of cozy ties affected how the board handled a controversy at at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, after its chief executive Paul Levy acknowledged an inappropriate relationship with a woman he hired. He announced his plans to resign in January.