Posts Tagged Gund Foundation
Gund Grant to Cleveland Schools… Such an Irony
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Politicians on February 28th, 2010
February 28, 2010… Think of the irony of it. The Gund Foundation is giving the Cleveland schools $2.5 million of dollars, according to a Page one story today in The Plain Dealer. Isn’t it ironic – or at amusing – or a dime on a dollar – that the Gund family took MANY millions FROM the city’s schools.
The Gunds were big property tax evaders.
Yes, it is a good move for the Gund Foundation to give $2.5 million with a promise of more. We should applaud for it. But let’s not get teary eyed.
It is so much as how the world works.
The rich get richer and they bequeath tax-free pennies from those they took.
The Gunds – George and Gordon – of course, once owned the Cleveland Cavaliers. Our sales (sin) taxes built the arena for them. They took us for plenty of dough.
They also benefited from an arena free of property taxes – millions of dollars each year. Most of it, ironically, from the schools. Cleveland schools that is. A peak at how millions are lost:
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/11689
The Gunds bought the Cavs from Ted Stepien before the 1983-83 season for some $20 million. The brothers sold the team for $375 million in 2005. Nice profit. After, of course, we provided them with a new arena. And parking. And a couple of free loges. Nice deal if you can get it. And if you have the dough you can.
Ironically, David Abbott in the early 1990s was Cuyahoga County chief administrator. Gateway was launched in May 1990. Abbott, who left in 1993, was a Tim Hagan man. Tim, of course, promoted Gateway. He was chief lobbyist, along with Mike White, in obtaining a full tax exemption for the arena building. It will never pay property taxes.
Abbott today has his picture on the PD front page as Gund Foundation executive director ($300,000 a year). He has certainly become a favorite person of the Pee Dee, where (maybe another irony) he once was a reporter.
And not to be paranoid or anything, Abbott also was an original board member of the Gateway Economic Development Corp. Gateway was very, very good to the Gunds. Gateway board members sort of ignored big overruns on the Gund arena. No good deed goes unrewarded in this game.
Abbott is a past director of University Circle, Inc. UCI is pressing hard for the Opportunity Corridor $375-million road to UC. Of course, the Gund Foundation gave the road project pushers $100,000 to start.
Money goes round and round. Some sometimes trickles down to where it is needed.
JumpStart Jumping with Big Salaries
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, People on February 5th, 2010
February 5, 2010… We haven’t heard the next barrage of fireworks from the tiff among the Cleveland Foundation, the Gund Foundation and the Fund for Our Economic Future… but I’m wondering how much big salaries have to do with the Cleveland Foundation’s desire for more control.
The Cleveland Foundation has sliced its hefty contribution to the Fund and says it will give individually to some of the same entities funded through the Fund for Our Economic Future.
Apparently, a major issue is where resources should be most concentrated. Cleveland Foundation suggests Cleveland and Cuyahoga County is its major concern. The Fund apparently wants to focus more outside those confines to a larger northeast Ohio area.
The issue has became fodder for The Plain Dealer recently and today’s paper has three letters to the editor on the matter.
The issue seems to be one of control. The Cleveland Foundation has given some one-third of the Fund’s budget annually but it has only one vote of 70 since each contributor giving $100,000 a year gets an equal vote. The foundation has cut its usually $3 to $4 million grant to a $100,000, the entry fee for a vote.
I looked at one of the funding recipients for money going to the Fund – JumpStart, Inc., a venture capital entity – and the salaries, at least to me, are rather shocking.
The top 10 employees of Jumpstart received in salaries and benefits in the 2007-08 report, latest available, to the Internal Revenue Service $1,871,354.
The top salary went to Ray Leach, President and CEO, at $369,311 with contributions to his benefits of $34,260, or a total of $403,571.
Other top salaries went this way:
- Rebecca Braun, Chief operating officer, $178,981 with $42,359 in benefits.
- Lynn-Ann Gries, Chief investment officer, $161,482 and $42,359 in benefits.
- Dawn Redus, Chief Economic Inclusion officer, $153,397 with $37,560 in benefits.
- Richard Jankura, Chief financial officer, $143,121.
- Jerold Frantz, manager, $143,273 and $35,772 in benefits.
- Kevin Mendelsohn, Entrepreneur in residence, $120,524 with $19,297 in benefits.
- Kerri Breen, Vice president, finance, $105,837 with $19,297 in benefits.
- Tiffan Clark, Vice President, marketing, $89,126 with $21,556 in benefits.
- Remsen Harris, investment associate, $88,205 and $34,821 in benefits.
Pension benefits seem to have become an issue for The Plain Dealer as they take after public employees. I’d suggest that they look at this benefit packages for nonprofit executives. They make the benefits to public employees seem rather skimpy. Especially when one sees the salaries bestowed upon executives of nonprofits. But fair isn’t one of the attributes of our news media.
You can read about JumpStart here…
http://www.jumpstartinc.org/ForDonors/
And here’s a link to the kind of positive promotion JumpStart gets from the news media…
http://blog.jumpstartinc.org/index.php/archives/117
Here’s a link to Ed Morrison’s take that offers some good information at Brewed Fresh Daily…
http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2010/whats-next-for-the-future-fund-and-the-cleveland-foundation
Unfortunately, private and even nonprofit organizations are not as open to public scrutiny as public agencies. They don’t have to be so they aren’t too forthcoming. That’s why there should be more attention by the news media to philanthropic organizations than there typically is.