Compensation on rise for top execs at nonprofits

The Sacramento Bee reports:

Charity jobs often come with meager salaries, but a review of nonprofit agencies around the region shows that, increasingly, is not always the case for the top bosses.

More than 200 employees of nonprofits in the Sacramento region earn more than $100,000 in salary and benefits. Thirty of those receive more than $200,000 - triple the number from 1999. Six make more than $300,000.

And, in what appears to be a first for the region, the chief executive officer of one nonprofit made more than $1 million in 2004 - and another reached that level through a one-time bonus - according to a Bee analysis of the latest federal tax records for the charity organizations.

Compensation for executives at the four-county region's 500 largest nonprofits is rising fast, too - even quicker than pay at for-profit companies. In the five years from 1999 to 2004, median salaries, benefits and expenses for the 100 best-paid rose about 42 percent. Adjusted for inflation, that was a 25 percent increase.

No word yet from Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin.