Jeb Bush's Florida do-gooder with a $761,000 salary
Next time you hear President Obama, or Jeb Bush, or Bernie Sanders call for more funds and programs for some social issue, or else praise public-private "partnerships," take a gander at what goes on in such rackets over in Florida, from this Miami Herald report:
Tiffany Carr runs the state's top domestic violence organization, a nonprofit that uses public money – state and federal – to finance shelters and other essential services. And she makes a good living.
How good? In a June 30, 2017 report, the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence disclosed she is paid $761,560 annually, a salary that is approved by its board. She hit that mark after receiving pay raises totaling $313,475 over a two-year period.
"That's – it's ridiculous," said Dan Ravicher, a professor at University of Miami School of Law who focuses on nonprofits, business and social entrepreneurship. "We're talking almost 2 percent of the budget being paid to one person. That's pretty unusual."
Carr's coalition, a nonprofit that reports its top salaries on annual Internal Revenue Service forms called 990s, is one of many private organizations that receive state funds to provide social services. In addition, the coalition operates as a pass-through, awarding public funds to smaller domestic violence organizations.
So this woman, who runs this non-profit group that supposedly helps battered women, is really, truly worth her $761,560 salary, and the state just has to cough up for her because of all the value she brings, or else all is lost. The racket is perpetrated not by civil service classifications, which are transparent to all, but by the contracting-out system, where less than transparent boards of directors sign off on these outrages, and who knows, get something they want from it. The Herald reports that $761,000-woman Carr's group gets nearly all its money from the government. She owns three houses, two of them expensive vacation homes, as part of a program set up by, surprise, then-gov. Jeb Bush.
Here's how that works, from the Herald:
Every state has a nonprofit domestic violence coalition, but Florida's has the largest budget due in part to a 15-year-old state law. The law, signed in 2003 by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, required that all state funds for domestic violence programs in Florida be distributed by the coalition, vastly expanded its budget and changed its role from primarily an advocacy, training and policy group to one with pass-through funding responsibilities. Bush has remained an active fundraiser for the coalition, and his wife, Columba, sits on the board of the coalition's foundation arm.
One hand washes the other, see? Since then, Carr has seen her take-home pay skyrocket in the last three years as she's figured out how to game the system, and voilà: she takes home pushing-a-million each year, along with establishment accolades for being so human- rather than profit-oriented.
Despite it being rather profitable for her. Just call it your tax dollars at work.
There are likely thousands of such groups out there quite a bit like this, always calling for funds, always saying they are chronically underfunded, and female Democratic Congress members are right there to repeat their plaints for More and scold Republicans. Imagine, for instance, what the Guidestar Premium reports might be able to tell about what goes on with all the federally funded non-profits that "serve" illegals.
By contrast, the average CEO salary, as noted on job-hunting site Indeed.com, is listed at $99,000, with the top end at $232,000. This is certainly not all of them – some are very high, indeed – but it's an indicator of what's out there now in the job market. These represent companies that create and add value to an economy yet are denounced by leftists as "greedy" and "for profit." So who the heck wants to be a CEO, when there's a government trough out there for the seven hundred grands in the virtue-signaling non-profits? Full of praise from the likes of Jeb Bush, who as governor of Florida, created this one, and who's always one to heap high praise on these "compassionate conservative" projects. The CEOs must feel like idiots.
Why would anyone want to work 80-hour weeks in the private sector when there's gravy to be had in the name of do-gooding like this, facilitated by Jeb Bush, with lots of political cover for it from the left?
Obviously, the swamp in need of cleaning has many, many tentacles, extending well beyond Washington.