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Smithsonian Resignation Triiggers More Scrutiny of Museum Pay
During Lawrence Small's seven-year tenure as head of the Smithsonian, his pay package almost tripled to about $916,000. His ballooning income didn't make him the highest-paid museum director in the U.S., though.
James N. Wood of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles is receiving $1.34 million in salary and benefits this year, while. Glenn Lowry of New York's Museum of Modern Art is earning $1.28 million. Others, such as Philippe de Montebello of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Peter Marzio of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts, have compensation packages worth more than $750,000.
Museums have increased pay in recent years to attract and keep directors who are aggressive fund-raisers as well as skilled managers. Like most nonprofit institutions, major museums get money from public coffers and private donors. Many of those donors are willing to underwrite elaborate compensation packages to keep charismatic, high-profile managers.
Small, a former vice chairman of Citibank, helped the Smithsonian raise more than $1 billion before he resigned this week following inquiries into his pay and perks.
``He was making 2 1/2 times what the president of the U.S. is making,'' said Trent Stamp, president of Mahwah, New Jersey- based Charity Navigator, which evaluates the performance of nonprofit institutions. ``It's hard for me to rationalize that running the Smithsonian is more complicated than running the entire U.S.''
Paul Dorf, managing director of Compensation Resources Inc. in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, disagrees.
``The base salary is predicated on what the market is for talent,'' said Dorf, who advises companies on executive compensation. ``It's absurd to think that just because a museum is a not for-profit that the director is going to take a salary of less than $100,000 a year.''
Trust Fund
U.S. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, has criticized the Smithsonian for paying Small almost $1 million to direct a government-supported institution. Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said Small was paid by the museum's foundation, which receives private and public funds.
Small resigned after questions were raised about his salary and expenses, including a $14,509 charter flight he took to San Antonio -- seven times the cost of a regular first-class ticket.
A report by the Smithsonian's inspector general found that Small had about 200 unauthorized travel charges totaling $67,865. Other museum directors also have come under scrutiny because of their compensation or spending habits. The New York State attorney general's office questioned the $5.35 million that Lowry was given between 1995 and 2003 from a trust created by philanthropist David Rockefeller and MoMA board member Agnes Gund. Lowry received that money in addition to his annual compensation, the New York Times reported in February.
Review Panel
Last year, Barry Munitz resigned as head of the J. Paul Getty Trust after the California attorney general investigated his $1.46 million salary and expenses, including a $35,000 trip to Italy with his wife and use of a $72,000 Porsche Cayenne. The Getty, with an endowment of more than $5.5 billion, is the world's richest art institution.
``We have allowed museum leadership to be paid at a demonstrably higher level than government officials,'' Stamp said in a telephone interview.
A three-member panel chosen by the Smithsonian board is going to review how Small ran the institution, panel chairman Charles Bowsher said in an interview. Smithsonian officials will be interviewed over the next two months in Washington.
``It will be a very comprehensive investigation,'' said Bowsher, a former U.S. comptroller general.
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