MontCo withholds money to charity because of high executive pay
By: Alan Suderman
Examiner Staff Writer
May 12, 2009
The Montgomery County Council is withholding funding for a local charity in an effort to send a message that the charity pays its director too much money.
The council voted to remove $55,000 in county funding for Food & Friends, a D.C. nonprofit that delivers meals to people living with HIV/AIDS and cancer, because its executive director, Craig Shniderman, made $357,447 in salary and benefits in 2007.
“This situation appears abusive,” said Councilman George Leventhal, D-at large, who spearheaded the effort to remove funding for Food & Friends.
According to Internal Revenue Service records, Food & Friends’ budget was more than $9.7 million in 2007. In 2006, the organization’s budget was $7.5 million and it paid Shniderman $334,551, tax records show.
The charity said it was “saddened and puzzled” by the county’s decision.
“What we have here is the recommendation that 8,000 specialized meals and nutrition counseling will not be funded by the Montgomery County government on the strength of Mr. Leventhal’s personal objection to compensation determined after careful study by the board of directors of Food & Friends,” Robert Hall III, president of the board of directors at the charity, wrote the council in an e-mail.
Hall said Food & Friends hired a “nationally recognized independent consultant” to come up with Schniderman’s compensation, which had been frozen this year because of the poor economy.
Leventhal said he recognized that Food & Friends was entitled to set its own compensation levels, but said he wanted to “send a clear signal” that Shniderman’s pay was unacceptably high.
“They can keep paying him, but we’re not going to contract with them,” he said.
Hall said more than 2,000 county residents volunteered to help Food & Friends and more than 4,000 county residents recently donated to the organization.
According to County Council staff, the county received applications for grants from about 150 organizations, about two-thirds of which did not have a staff member who made more than $100,000.
