On the very day that Obama is telling top executives they need to be cutting pay (you know to be sure the wealth is more evenly distributed) someone sent me news that Gideon Aronoff, CEO of one of the Top Ten (Volag) Government Contractors, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, hasn’t cut his. This while newly arrived refugees are completely freaked out because of the dismal jobs outlook, some even fearing eviction.
Four staffers jobs were axed at HIAS which seems to have fixed this non-profit’s balance sheet without Mr. Aronoff experiencing any personal financial pain.
In other cases, top executives have simply viewed their own salaries as one of many expenses that the organization could consider cutting — and not necessarily the first option.
“We considered all of the approaches and decided that the best way to do it — to leave things as much as possible the way they were before the economic downturn — was this scalpel-like cutting,” said Gideon Aronoff, president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Aronoff, who earned $250,000 in 2007, laid off four of his organization’s 70 employees, in addition to implementing various other cuts in expenses.
Aronoff added that salary reductions for himself and other senior managers were “on the table” when the final budget numbers came in, but that the numbers worked out in a way that made salary cuts unnecessary. Aronoff did participate in an organization-wide giveback of four vacation days for all employees.
He did give up four vacation days along with everyone else at HIAS.
Funny, I couldn’t find a Form 990 for HIAS in New York. There is one in Chicago that is largely funded by the taxpayer and I suspect this one is too.