Robert Decherd

The Providence Journal’s parent company gave its top executives pay raises and $1.7 million in bonuses in 2012 as they eked out an annual profit for the first time.

A.H. Belo awarded CEO Robert Decherd $1.9 million in 2012, up from $1.6 million in 2011 and $499,180 in 2009, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing.

Decherd’s compensation included a $567,692 salary, bumped up from $480,000 in 2011; $705,678 in cash bonuses; $487,500 in stock awards; and $127,139 in other benefits, including $7,920 for life insurance. Decherd is also A.H. Belo’s chairman and president.

In addition, the Dallas-based company said it paid Executive Vice President James Moroney $1.4 million in 2012, up from $1.1 million in 2011; Chief Financial Officer Alison Engel $805,490, up from $626,091; and Senior Vice President Daniel Blizzard $557,672, up from $424,991. Former executive John McKeon received $272,286 before his departure last April.

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By Ted Nesi

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WPRI) – CVS Caremark CEO Larry Merlo’s pay package jumped by a third to total more than $18 million in 2012, up from $12 million the previous year, according to an SEC filing.

Read the rest of this story »

• The Saturday Morning Post: CVS Caremark is on a hot streak (Feb. 23)

Rhode Island Airport Corporation CEO Kevin Dillon is leaving the quasi-public agency, The Providence Journal reported Tuesday. Back in 2010, Target 12 took a look at the agency’s executive compensation plan:

WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) – The quasi-public agency that runs T.F. Green Airport is paying its CEO nearly $300,000 a year, significantly more than top executives are making at similar-sized airports elsewhere in the country, a Target 12 investigation has found.

Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC) President and CEO Kevin Dillon took home $236,709 during his first 10 months in the job in 2008 and $296,010 in 2009. He is on track to receive $283,130 this year.

RIAC disclosed Dillon’s compensation in response to a public records request filed by Target 12. But the agency refused to break down the gross salary figure to show the amounts of Dillon’s base salary and yearly bonuses. The figures do not include benefits such as medical insurance and retirement contributions.

Read the rest here.

The Providence Journal’s parent company, A.H. Belo, shaved its top executives’ compensation in 2011 after more than doubling their pay in 2010, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing.

A.H. Belo awarded CEO Robert Decherd $1.6 million last year, down 14% from $1.9 million in 2010, and up 222% from $499,180 in 2009, the filing said.

Decherd’s pay included a $480,000 salary, $899,997 in stock awards, a $168,474 cash bonus and $61,441 in other benefits. Decherd’s salary rose to $600,000 a year effective this month, a separate filing said.

The Dallas-based company awarded Executive Vice President James Moroney $1.1 million in 2011, down from $1.3 million in 2010; Chief Financial Officer Alison Engel $626,091, down from $800,001; Senior Vice President Daniel Blizzard $424,991, down from $575,000; and departing executive John McKeon $891,788, down from $1.3 million. The first three executives’  base salaries also increased this month.

A.H. Belo posted a net loss of $10.9 million in 2011, compared with a net loss of $124.2 million in 2010, as revenue fell 5% to $461.5 million. The company’s stock is down almost 3% this year based on Tuesday’s closing price of $4.62 a share, after declining 45% in 2011.

• Related: Projo parent AH Belo’s board awards big raises to top bosses (March 20)

(chart: DailyFinance)

John Kell reports for Marketwatch:

Total pay for Hasbro Inc.’s HAS -0.99% President and Chief Executive Brian Goldner declined 67% to $7.6 million in 2011 from the previous year, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

While the toy maker has reported impressive growth in many international markets and even notched 7% worldwide top line growth last year, results underperformed the company’s internally set performance targets, resulting in falling values for Goldner’s stock and option awards. …

Total pay for Chief Financial Officer Deborah Thomas dropped 5.5% to $1.8 million, while the figure slid 20% to $4.7 million for Chief Operating Officer David Hargreaves.

• Related: WSJ looks at how Angry Birds is hurting Pawtucket’s Hasbro (Dec. 17)

Top executives at The Providence Journal’s parent company, A.H. Belo, are getting big pay raises despite a 45% decline in the publisher’s stock price during 2011, the fourth straight year it lost money.

The compensation committee of A.H. Belo’s board of directors awarded the largest increase to CEO Robert Decherd. His annual base salary will jump 25% to $600,000 in April, the Dallas-based company said in an SEC filing. Decherd is chairman of the board.

In addition, A.H. Belo said Dallas Morning News publisher Jim Moroney’s base salary will increase 15.5% to $540,000; Chief Financial Officer Alison Engel’s will increase 8.3% to $325,000; and senior vice president Daniel Blizzard’s will increase 12% to $280,000. Their total compensation for 2011 will be reported later this spring.

John Hill, president of the Providence Newspaper Guild union, said the four executives “should be ashamed of themselves” for taking more money less than a year after laying off and buying out Journal staffers. The paper’s work force fell by a third between 2008 and 2011. The Guild signed a new contract in February 2011.

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By Ted Nesi

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WPRI) – CVS Caremark CEO Larry Merlo’s pay package totaled $12 million in 2011, up a third from the $9 million he got in 2010 before formally taking the top job, the company said Thursday in an SEC filing.

Merlo, who lives in East Greenwich, succeeded Tom Ryan as the Woonsocket-based drugstore giant’s chief executive last March. His 2011 pay package included a $1.2 million salary; a $3.8 million bonus (formally known as “non-equity incentive plan compensation”); $6.8 million in stock and stock option awards; and $211,144 in “other compensation.”

Merlo’s other compensation was made up of $51,319 for personal use of CVS’s corporate jet; $13,225 for financial planning services; $883 for home security; $8,800 for the CVS Caremark Charity Classic; and $74,227 in additional retirement contributions.

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Former CVS Caremark CEO Tom Ryan’s $68 million pay package landed him at No. 5 on a new list of America’s highest-paid corporate chiefs.

Only four companies paid their CEOs more than Woonsocket-based CVS in 2010, according to a survey of 2,647 companies by GMI Ratings, The Guardian reported. They were McKesson, Omnicare, TRW Automotive Holdings and Verisk Analytics. CEO pay went up 27% overall last year.

Dow Jones Newswires reported last spring that Ryan’s 2010 compensation package was in fact nearly twice as large as the $68 million reported by GMI Ratings. The wire service pegged his pay at $124 million after accounting for a one-time payment of $58.4 million upon his retirement.

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Peter Andruszkiewicz

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island’s new president and CEO will get paid $600,000 a year starting out, WPRI.com has learned.

Blue Cross Rhode Island – one of the most dominant health insurers in the country – announced Tuesday that Peter Andruszkiewicz, the president of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in Georgia, will take over from James Purcell as the nonprofit’s top executive late next month.

Andruszkiewicz will receive a base salary of $600,000, Blue Cross spokeswoman Kim Reingold said in an e-mail. That amount “is slightly less than that of our current CEO and less than other regional, midsize Blue Cross & Blue Shield plans,” she said.

The total size of Andruszkiewicz’s compensation package would be higher if the value of benefits and other perks were included.

Andruszkiewicz’s $600,000 salary is $100,000 more than the half-million dollars Purcell got starting out in 2005, his first full year as Blue Cross’ permanent CEO. Purcell’s predecessor, Ronald Battista, was earning a salary of $546,500 annually before he resigned in controversy in May 2004.

Blue Cross Rhode Island insures roughly 600,000 Rhode Islanders and employs more than 1,000 people. The insurer says it lost $14 million in 2010 and $100 million in 2009.

Andrew Dreyfus, who took over as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts’ CEO last year, earns an $800,000 base salary – an amount he described last month as “rock-bottom-of-the-market” compensation.

“I will be one of the lowest paid Blue Cross executives in the country,” Dreyfus told Statehouse News Service – which implies that Andruszkiewicz’s $600,000 places him even closer to the bottom of the list.

Blue Cross of Massachusetts has come under fire for its compensation practices in recent months after revelations that it gave an $11 million golden parachute to ex-CEO Cleve Killingsworth, who left in 2010, and provided five-figure annual payments to its board members. The board suspended its own pay last month under pressure from Attorney General Martha Coakley.

Blue Cross of Rhode Island does not compensate its 17 board members, unlike its Bay State counterpart, a spokeswoman told WPRI.com last month.

Malcolm Chace

The big news in Rhode Island’s business community today is the sale of Bank Rhode Island to Massachusetts’ Brookline Bancorp for $234 million in cash and stock.

BankRI’s share price has soared as much as 52% in Nasdaq trading today – from $30.71 a share when the market closed yesterday afternoon to $44.50 at this writing – following announcement of the deal, which values the company at $48.25 a share.

That jump in the stock price is good news for BankRI’s top executives, three of whose compensation jumped last year thanks to big awards of company shares: Chief Financial Officer Linda Simmons, Chief Lending Officer Mark Meiklejohn and Chief Information Officer Robert Wischnowsky.

The biggest beneficiary from the sale, though, may be Malcolm G. Chace III, BankRI’s 76-year-old co-founder and chairman, who is also a former board member at Warren Buffett’s famed Berkshire Hathaway and a well-known Rhode Island philanthropist.

Chace owned 12.5% of BankRI’s common stock as of Dec. 31. The value of his 588,281 shares has soared from $18.1 million Tuesday afternoon to $26.2 million at midday today – an $8.1 million gain in less than 24 hours.

After Chace, the next biggest beneficiary will be fellow current CEO Merrill Sherman. The 62-year-old co-founder’s 289,398 shares – 6% of the company’s stock – rose in value from $8.9 million Tuesday afternoon to $12.9 million today, a cool $4 million gain overnight.

Of course, in both cases those gains will only exist on paper until the shares are sold.

Among the current executives, Meiklejohn was the biggest winner last year.

The chief lending officer’s compensation package doubled from $350,027 in 2009 to $695,366 in 2010 after he received stock and options awards worth $351,520. Meiklejohn’s salary was $281,308 and he also got a cash bonus (technically, “non-equity incentive plan compensation”) of $119,751.

CIO Wischnowsky’s pay package rose 82% last year, from $376,205 in 2009 to $682,933 in 2010. His $250,000 salary was boosted by $305,471 in stock and options awards and $127,662 in cash bonuses.

CFO Simmons’ package totaled $776,224 in 2010, up 63% from the $474,996 she received in 2009, and included her $281,308 salary; $351,520 in stock and options awards; and a $135,875 cash bonus.

CEO Sherman’s pay grew 10% to $929,080 in 2010, while its Macrolease division’s president, Daniel West, saw his rise 7% to $265,990.

Since the values of the executives’ stock awards are based on an older share price, each of those compensation packages is likely far more valuable today than it was when the company disclosed them in an SEC filing last week. BankRI also said some of the stock awards will become available sooner because of the Brookline takeover, unless shareholders reject the deal.

Eyewitness News reporter Tim White contributed to this report.

(photo: Bancorp Rhode Island)

“Local boy makes good.” In the news business, few Rhode Island natives fit that hoary headline better than Joe Nocera.

Nocera grew up in Providence, graduating from Classical High in 1970 before attending Boston University. This month, the veteran business journalist added another achievement to his lengthy résumé, which includes GQ, Newsweek and Esquire bylines: op-ed columnist for The New York Times.

Nocera was back in Rhode Island over the weekend to accept a Distinguished Alumni Award from Classical – and to visit his large extended family. I sat down with him to talk about his new job, Providence then and now, The Times’ new paywall, executive pay at CVS – and whether The Providence Journal will survive. (The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

You’re here to get an award from Classical.

I’m very excited.

What are your most vivid memories from your time there?

I don’t think I can say that.

(Laughs.) Your G-rated memories, then.

Really, playing against Marvin Barnes‘ Central [High] team, and losing by about 40 points.

Central and Classical always used to play. Marvin Barnes was a senior that year, and everybody knew he was going to Providence College next year; they were the fifth or sixth-ranked team in the country. We weren’t even in the same division, but because we were across the street from each other we always had an annual game. So playing that game and seeing what it’s like to play against the big boys – that’s a vivid memory.

But obviously, a wonderful education, memorable teachers, and as I said to the students [at an assembly] today – I came out of Classical thinking I was going to be a math major, and I realized once I got to college that I was never going to be good enough in that. But I was able to switch to journalism because I had this foundation – so much of what you do at Classical is based around writing – and I had this foundation, so it wasn’t this impossible thing for me to switch. I owe them a lot.

When you come back to Providence, what do you notice about the city thinking back to your years growing up here?

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Pawtucket toymaker Hasbro tripled CEO Brian Goldner’s pay to $23 million in 2010 and Providence conglomerate Textron paid its CEO Scott Donnelly $8.4 million, new SEC filings show.

Goldner

At Hasbro, Goldner’s total compensation jumped from $7.8 million in 2009 to $23 million in 2010 as the company awarded him nearly $19 million worth of stock and stock options, according to WPRI.com calculations based on its SEC filing. The CEO’s base salary also got bumped from $1 million to $1.2 million.

Goldner, 47, has been with Hasbro for 11 years and became the company’s president and CEO in 2008. He signed a new contract with Hasbro’s board in March 2010 that provided him with additional stock awards as an incentive for him to remain with the company through 2014.

Among Hasbro’s other executives, Chief Operating Officer David Hargreaves earned $4 million in 2010; Chief Financial Officer Deborah Thomas earned $1.8 million; Global Chief Development Officer Duncan Billing earned $1.9 million; and Global Chief Marketing Officer John Frascotti earned $1.9 million.

Hasbro said it “seeks to have the large majority of its overall executive compensation program comprised of variable performance-based elements, reflecting a commitment to pay for performance,” and noted that $21.4 million of Goldner’s pay package was made up of company shares.

Hasbro said former chairman and CEO Alan Hassenfeld was its highest-paid board member, earning $388,000 as a director in 2010, including $261,254 in cash. Hassenfeld is considering a run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Sheldon Whitehouse next year. Hasbro Chairman Al Verrecchia earned $245,073.

Donnelly

At Textron, CEO Donnelly’s total compensation doubled from $4.1 million in 2009 to $8.4 million in 2010. That included his $1 million salary; stock and stock options; and benefits including an annual physical examination, parking and the $10,200 cost of training a Textron employee to help fly Donnelly’s personal Cessna Caravan.

Donnelly, 49, joined Textron in 2008. He’s been the company’s president and CEO since 2009 and its chairman since last September. Although Donnelly does not have a fixed-term contract like Goldner, his employment agreement calls for him to get “separation benefits and excise tax protection” if he gets fired, Textron said.

Among Textron’s other executives, Chief Financial Officer Frank Connor earned $3.8 million in 2010; Chief HR Officer John Butler earned $2.2 million; and General Counsel Terrence O’Donnell earned $2.2 million.

Textron and Hasbro are Rhode Island’s second- and third-largest public companies by revenue; CVS Caremark in Woonsocket is largest of all. CVS’s now-retired CEO Tom Ryan earned $15.5 million last year, but additional one-time compensation brought the final total to $124 million, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

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Providence Journal parent A.H. Belo awarded its top five executives nearly $1.6 million in cash bonuses last year, the company disclosed Monday in an SEC filing.

A.H. Belo CEO Robert Decherd’s total compensation more than tripled to $1.87 million in 2010, up from $499,180 in 2009, according to WPRI.com calculations based on the SEC filing.

Decherd’s 2010 pay package included a $480,000 salary; a $408,000 cash bonus; $949,998 worth of stock awards; and $29,872 in “other compensation.” The latter category included $8,760 for life insurance, $3,150 in tax gross-ups to make up for the cost of taxes on other benefits, and a $420 cell phone allowance.

Among the other four top executives, Dallas Morning News Publisher James Moroney earned $1.3 million in 2010, up from $478,090 in 2009; Morning News President and General Manager John McKeon earned $1.3 million in his first year on the job; Chief Financial Officer Alison Engel earned $800,001, up from $276,765; and Senior Vice President Daniel Blizzard earned $575,000, up from $211,228.

The largest cash bonus went to McKeon, who received $584,960, most of it as a retention bonus. Moroney got $327,250 in cash, Engel got $150,000 and Blizzard got $100,000. Dallas-based A.H. Belo owns the Projo, The Morning News and The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.

(WPRI.com’s compensation estimates are lower than two of the amounts A.H. Belo reported in its SEC form because ours subtract out yearly changes in the actuarial value of executives’ pensions; adding that back in would increase total compensation to $2.04 million for Decherd and $1.43 million for Moroney.)

A.H. Belo’s stock price rose 51% in 2010, from $5.76 a share at the start of the year and to $8.70 at the end. The company posted a net loss in 2010 of $124.2 million, or $5.92 a share, compared with a loss of $107.9 million, or $5.25 a share, in 2009. Revenue fell 6% to $487.3 million.

In a letter to employees last month, Decherd said A.H. Belo was reinstating the company’s 401(k) match of 1.5% for the first half of this year. But he warned that it may be a long time before the company can hand out performance-based raises to rank-and-file workers.

Executives “continue to monitor competitive pay practices in our industry and we are very much aware that there have been no merit increases at A.H. Belo since 2008,” Decherd said.

“However, the early-stage recovery in Dallas and the economic challenges in Rhode Island and Inland Southern California continue to create uncertainty that makes it difficult to predict when merit increases can be implemented at any level in the company,” he said.

(logos: A.H. Belo)

Most of the front page of Saturday’s Providence Journal was taken up with a banner headline and accompanying package about how the General Assembly’s leaders have given raises of more than 3% to 102 staffers over the past year, as you can see at right. The headline: “Double-digit raises in time of austerity.”

It was a good story by the indefatigable Kathy Gregg, and I’m certainly not going to defend these raises. Whether deserved or not, handing them out was a pretty tone-deaf move by Speaker Fox and Senate President Paiva Weed as they deal with a $331 million budget deficit and month after month of double-digit unemployment.

It’s striking, though, that the Projo ran two stories (plus a Bob Kerr column) about the legislative raises in one week, but didn’t publish a single story about the $124 million that Woonsocket’s CVS Caremark paid ex-CEO Tom Ryan last year. His nine-digit windfall was more than six times the General Assembly’s entire $19 million annual payroll this year.

The Journal wouldn’t have had to do the story itself (although WPRI did) – The Associated Press wire ran an article about it, which the paper could have printed. Granted, it was Dow Jones that came up with the $124 million figure – but even the lower $15.5 million total reported by WPRI and the AP seems newsworthy.

The dollar figures of the five legislative staffers’ salaries that made Saturday’s front page were peanuts by comparison. The largest among them was the $162,986 salary of Fox’s chief of staff, Frank Anzeveno. At CVS, Ryan made $162,986 every day last year – by 11:30 a.m.

True, the General Assembly’s employees are government workers, while Tom Ryan and CVS are in the private sector. But CVS received half of Rhode Island’s $40 million in business tax breaks in 2010 – and the company noted in a recent SEC filing that it gets “a significant portion” of its revenue from taxpayers, through programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

The Journal’s headline about pay increases “in time of austerity” could apply to CVS, too.

The company – Rhode Island’s largest private employer – laid off 150 workers in Woonsocket last October, as first reported by WPRI. Its stock still hasn’t fully recovered from the 20% plunge it took under Ryan’s watch in November 2009. Its earnings forecast for 2011 is weak. It’s being investigated by 24 states and the FTC.

CVS’s compensation practices have come under fire nationally. Ryan was the 18th most-overpaid CEO in the U.S. in 2009, according to a Bloomberg-commissioned study of 271 compensation packages last year, and The Corporate Library gave the company a “D” for its executive pay policy in 2010.

Compensation at the General Assembly is a newsworthy story for Rhode Islanders, but it seems to me that compensation at CVS is, too – yet only one of them merited an article in the paper (and on the front page, no less). Sometimes what doesn’t get covered is just as interesting as what does.

(photo: CVS Caremark)

CVS's $15 million man

CVS gave Tom Ryan a fond financial farewell prior to his retirement earlier this month as the company’s CEO.

CVS Caremark paid Ryan $15.5 million in 2010, down from $16.2 million in 2009 and $19.2 million in 2008, according to WPRI.com calculations based on a new SEC filing by the Woonsocket-based company.

Ryan’s 2010 pay package included a $1.48 million salary; a $2.2 million bonus (formally known as “non-equity incentive plan compensation”); $11.5 million in stock and stock option awards; and $281,481 in “other compensation.”

The “other compensation” was made up of $71,872 worth of personal use of CVS’s corporate jet; $2,391 worth of personal use of a CVS company car; $15,000 for financial planning services; $3,028 for home security; $186,250 in retirement contributions; and $2,940 in life insurance premiums, the company said.

Ryan was not the highest paid CVS executive in 2010, however. That distinction went to Per Lofberg, the new chief of the company’s troubled pharmacy-benefit management (PBM) division, who earned $15.6 million.

CVS paid $9 million to Larry Merlo, Ryan’s successor as CEO. Chief Financial Officer David Denton got $3.4 million and Chief Legal Officer Douglas Sgarro received $4.2 million. All the executives got salary increases last year except Lofberg, who was still a new employee in 2010, despite what the company described as its “challenging” performance last year.

Ryan, Merlo and Sgarro are the only three active participants in CVS’s “Supplemental Retirement Plan I for Select Senior Management,” a pension plan which is unfunded and has now been closed to new participants, the company said.

Merlo succeeded Ryan as CVS’s CEO on March 1 after replacing him as its president last year. Ryan will also step down as the company’s chairman after its annual meeting in May, when David Dorman will take that job.

Once Ryan retires, “he will receive compensation and benefits consistent with his outstanding agreements and the terms of the benefit plans in which he participates,” CVS said.

(WPRI.com’s compensation estimates differ from three of the amounts CVS reported in its SEC form because those add in yearly changes in the actuarial value of executives’ pensions; including that would increase the totals to $29.2 million for Ryan; $10.9 million for Merlo; and $4.9 million for Sgarro.)

Outsiders have expressed concern about compensation policy at CVS. The Corporate Library, an independent advisory group, gave the company a “D” for executive pay based on Ryan’s 2010 earnings.

Update: Or did Tom Ryan make $124 million last year? That’s the figure Dow Jones Newswires came up with after digging through the footnotes:

Thomas Ryan received total 2010 compensation of $29.2 million for the last year of a dozen-year stint at the helm of CVS Caremark Corp. (CVS), and another $50.4 million from stock-award vestings and the exercise of stock options.

Additionally, the executive decided to take his pension benefit in a lump sum, rather than in annuity payments, upon his retirement this year, netting him another roughly $58.4 million. That results in a take of nearly $125 million for his final 14 months or so on the job after certain adjustments.

My apologies to Ryan for lowballing his pay by $108 million. (In my defense, The Associated Press went with $15.5 million, too.) I’m hoping to discover a similar-sized error in my own paycheck this Friday.

(photo: CVS Caremark)

R.I. Airport Corporation CEO Kevin Dillon took home $283,130 in 2010, according to a spokeswoman for the quasi-public agency, which runs T.F. Green Airport.

That was $12,880 less than Dillon made in 2009, when he earned $296,010. It matches the amount RIAC forecast he would get in response to a Target 12 investigation last fall.

RIAC also confirmed the following 2010 gross salaries for its other four top executives: Brian Schattle, who got $183,831; Patti Goldstein, $141,740; Ann Clarke, $129,561; and Alan Andrade, $126,523.

Dillon is almost certainly one of the best-paid officials in Rhode Island government, although compensation for employees at the quasi-publics is difficult to track. A 2008 Providence Journal investigation showed RIAC’s then-leader, Mark Brewer, earned more money than any other quasi-public employee in 2007: $243,798.

URI basketball coach Jim Baron was Rhode Island government’s top earner overall in 2009-10 at $380,656, Target 12 reported in November after analyzing payroll figures provided by the state.

However, those figures did not include compensation data for the quasi-publics. To take one high-profile example, EDC chief Keith Stokes made $185,000 in his first year (although Governor Carcieri offered $250,000 to his first choice for the job). Governor Chafee will make $129,210 this year; Rhode Island’s median household income is $54,562.

Dillon’s $283,130 total gross salary includes his regular salary and a bonus, which is awarded at the discretion of the board. RIAC refused a request by Target 12 to break out its executives’ bonuses from other compensation, arguing that the information is shielded by Rhode Island’s public records law.

Our investigation last fall found Dillon earns significantly more than top executives at similar-sized airports elsewhere in the country.

RIAC laid off 22 workers last year as T.F. Green’s passenger traffic fell 9% to 3.9 million. That was the first time in at least 12 years fewer than 4 million passengers used the airport, the Projo reported yesterday.

RIPTA's Al Moscola is now a COO

Rhode Island’s $100K Club just got a little bigger.

RIPTA said Monday it has hired Charles Odimgbe to be its CEO, a newly created top job at the agency. Until now, the head of RIPTA had been its general manager, a position held by Al Moscola since 2002.

But Moscola isn’t leaving; he will now be reporting to Odimgbe. The new CEO and the longtime GM will both make the same $162,219 annual salary, RIPTA Chairman John Rupp told me this morning.

“We’re doing some transitioning, looking at a reorganization,” he said.

If Odimgbe is now RIPTA’s CEO, Moscola will be its COO, or chief operating officer – the guy in charge of executing Odimgbe’s plans and keeping the buses running on time day to day, Rupp said. “Al Moscola is an extremely valuable operations person,” and his expertise will be put to good use in the coming years as the authority transitions to a new fleet of buses, he said. (Moscola will probably get a new job title, but that hasn’t been finalized yet.)

The problem RIPTA’s board has identified – and hopes it has solved with Odimgbe’s hiring – is related to lost opportunities, such as making greater use of its new maintenance facility, that haven’t been addressed because there wasn’t someone with the time to put the wheels in motion, Rupp said. The new CEO will also play a key role as RIPTA moves forward with its ambitious plan to bring streetcars back to Providence.

Update: It’s worth pointing out that our $100K Club story from last night did not include employees who work for the state’s many quasi-public agencies, which include RIPTA, the Rhode Island Airport Corporation and the R.I. Economic Development Corporation. Those are home to some of the biggest salaries in state government, and their payrolls are done separately from the main state database we analyzed.

The number of state employees making $100,000 or more jumped 17% over the last two years – from 977 people in 2008 to 1,145 in 2010 – according to a new Target 12 investigation airing tonight at 10 on Fox and at 11 on WPRI 12. You can read and watch the whole story here.

I was as surprised as anybody when we ran the numbers and saw that sizable increase in six-figure salaries. Rhode Island spent the last two years cutting workers and eking out savings to deal with huge deficits – the result being balanced budgets, but also long waits at agencies ranging from the DMV to the unemployment insurance office.

Carcieri administration officials frequently boast that total state government employment is now at its lowest level on record, and we saw evidence of that in our analysis; the total number of people on the state payroll dropped by more than 1,000 over the two-year span, from 18,163 in 2008 to 17,035 in 2010.

But it appears the same effort has not been put into restraining pay at the top of the state payroll. There is anecdotal evidence for that, too.

The state offered $250,000 a year to Ioanna Morfessis when she was awarded the EDC’s top job – more than double the $100,000 or so paid to her predecessor, Saul Kaplan. After Morfessis withdrew, the job went to Keith Stokes – who still got $185,000, nearly doubling Kaplan’s pay. And Deborah Gist got $20,000 more than Peter McWalters when she replaced him as education commissioner earlier in the year. (Anchor Rising’s Justin Katz noted the same thing at the time of Morfessis’ hiring.)

I’m not an executive compensation expert, and there’s certainly a case to be made for paying professionals like Stokes and Gist whatever is necessary to get qualified, top-notch people running state departments. I’ve also heard experts say it’s important to continue rewarding the best employees even during bad economic times to avoid weakening the organization and hurting their morale. (That’s why job cuts are often made in one fell swoop, like ripping off a Band-Aid.) Either way, it’s interesting.

But wait, there’s more!

To go along with Tim White’s piece about the $100K Club, I took a look at another compensation issue, this one in the City of Providence – longevity bonuses. Here’s an excerpt from my new WPRI.com story on that topic:

Longevity bonuses go to everyone who’s worked for the city for seven years or more – and a spokeswoman for Mayor-elect Angel Taveras says once he takes office in January he plans to take a hard look at whether the city can still afford them.

Providence doled out an estimated $4.2 million worth of longevity bonuses this year to 1,045 workers in departments ranging from the mayor’s office to Roger Williams Park and the North Burial Ground cemetery, according to payroll records obtained and analyzed by Target 12.

Hundreds of additional longevity bonuses went to employees of the school department, whose payroll numbers are calculated separately and were not included in Target 12′s analysis.

The 1,045 checks for workers outside the schools this year ranged in size from Fire Chief George Farrell’s $15,250 payout – the biggest of all – down to a modest $119 bonus for Lewis Perrotti, a retired police officer.

Read the whole thing.

(image credit: Wikipedia)

Ruth Simmons

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual report on college presidents’ pay is out today, and let’s just cut to the chase via the Projo’s story:

Three university presidents in Rhode Island — Ruth J. Simmons of Brown, Ronald K. Machtley of Bryant and John J. Bowen of Johnson & Wales — made more than $800,000 in 2008, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. …

[Simmons'] total compensation — including the value of housing and other nontaxable benefits — was $884,771 in the calendar year 2008, making her 20th among the chief executives of comparable institutions. …

Machtley, with $817,869, and Bowen, with $805,603, rank 9th and 10th in the nation among comprehensive universities and colleges, those which award master’s degrees.

Not bad, huh? Among the eight Ivy League schools’ chiefs, Simmons’ pay was fourth-highest, less than Yale’s head got but more than Harvard’s did, Bloomberg News reports. In fact, Machtley and Bowen made nearly as much as Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust in 2008.

In Simmons’ case, though, that actually understates how much money she actually took home that year  – because she also served on the boards of Goldman Sachs and Texas Instruments. (She stepped down at Goldman last year after her role there became controversial.)

On top of the $884,771 she got from Brown, Simmons got $323,539 from Goldman and another $223,322 at TI. So when you combine Simmons’ pay from all three gigs, her 2008 compensation totals a whopping $1.4 million. Not all of that money came in the form of a paycheck; some of it represents the value of stock options and retirement benefits. No matter how you slice it, though, that’s a cool chunk of change.

Machtley serves on the board of insurer Amica; I’m not sure about Bowen. Nonetheless, it’s an open question whether college presidents really make good corporate directors. Reuters’ Felix Salmon raked Simmons over the coals for her service on Goldman Sachs’ board in the lead-up to the financial crisis, and Bloomberg reported earlier this year that it’s becoming a thorny matter for higher-ed chiefs:

As much as higher education and corporate America would like to be engaged, college presidents are struggling to reconcile the demands and values of academia with shareholder skepticism about their boardroom commitments. …

“For university presidents, sitting on a corporate board used to be a resume enhancer and a networking opportunity,” Nell Minow, chairman of the Corporate Library, a Portland, Maine, company that evaluates board performance, said in an interview. “Now it is a genuine and very demanding task with some daunting liability — reputational and financial.” …

Companies recruit college presidents to add independent voices on boards dominated by corporate officers. Shareholders question the college leaders’ availability for board tasks. Campus critics say chancellors, provosts and presidents should be focusing on budget cuts and shrunken endowments, and are tainted by the behavior of companies they serve.

Update: Good catch by PBN’s Bill Hamilton – it turns out Simmons isn’t the highest-paid college executive in Rhode Island. That distinction goes to one of her deputies, Cynthia Frost, who oversees the school’s endowment. Check out Bill’s story here – he has a full rundown of how much the various college presidents make.

RIAC President & CEO Kevin Dillon

Despite growing financial difficulties, the head of the quasi-public agency that runs T.F. Green Airport is still making nearly $300,000 a year, much more than his peers, a two-month Target 12 investigation by Tim White and me has found:

R.I. Airport Corporation President and CEO Kevin Dillon took home $236,709 during his first 10 months in the job in 2008 and $296,010 in 2009. He is on track to receive $283,130 this year.

RIAC disclosed Dillon’s compensation in response to a public records request filed by Target 12. But the agency refused to break down the gross salary figure to show the amounts of Dillon’s base salary and yearly bonuses. The figures do not include benefits such as medical insurance and retirement contributions. …

In 2009, the total number of passengers boarding at T.F. Green – 2.1 million – ranked 61st in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Target 12 requested salary information from the 10 airports ranked 56th through 66th in passenger traffic to see how Dillon’s compensation compares. Seven of the 10 responded.

Those figures show Dillon’s projected 2010 pay of $283,130 tops six of the other seven airport chiefs’ compensation. The only exception is Gina Marie Lindsey, who makes $326,855 as head of Los Angeles’ aviation agency.

The entire 1,700-word story is available here, including details on the soaring cost of employee wages and benefits at the agency and its decision to pay a Houston company to manage the state’s five smaller airports. In addition, here are some more details and data from the investigation.

Part of our investigation involved obtaining compensation information from the 10 aviation agencies in charge of airports with an annual passenger total around T.F. Green’s 2 million. It wasn’t easy – some of the agencies were quite forthcoming, while others did not return repeated calls. You can view the full survey results here.

The main reason RIAC is finding itself in a fiscal squeeze is because its passenger traffic has been dropping precipitously for five years now – down almost 30% since 2004-05, long before the Great Recession began:

• 2004-5: 2.86 million
• 2005-6: 2.77 million
• 2006-7: 2.52 million
• 2007-8: 2.48 million
• 2008-9: 2.26 million
• 2009-10: 2.03 million

Although neither Dillon nor any of RIAC’s board members were willing to speak to us on camera, the directors did release a statement to us expressing strong support for his leadership. Here is the full statement, which was attributed to RIAC Vice Chairman Joseph M. Cianciolo:

The Rhode Island Airport Corporation Board of Directors reiterates its strong support for Kevin Dillon, as its President and CEO, noting that he has not only met but has surpassed the goals which have been set for him since joining the Corporation in February 2008. Of particular note is his work on advancing the intermodal project, his development and implementation of a new airline agreement, and his work on the [Environmental Impact Statement] project, which culminated in the selection of a preferred alternative and the publication of the Draft EIS in July 2010. The Board is confident that under Mr. Dillon’s leadership critical project elements within the Draft EIS may be operational as early as 2012. Mr. Dillon is further commended for his tireless commitment of maintaining a continuous dialogue with members of the local community. The Board is also fully supportive of Mr. Dillon’s efforts to meet its goal to remain competitive by addressing historical operational cost issues and by working with the airport’s union in labor negotiations.

The Board looks forward to Mr. Dillon’s future contributions in moving the Corporation forward. To this end, the Board will be considering an action item at its next regularly scheduled Board meeting to extend Mr. Dillon’s contract to the fullest term permitted by law.

Do you have questions about our RIAC investigation? Send me an e-mail at tnesi (at) wpri (dot) com, and I’ll do my best to answer it here.

(image credit: R.I. Airport Corporation)