George Kirikos posted tonight about the Executive Compensation being paid to some of the higher ups in ICANN and not only does he point out that some people are making big bucks working for ICANN, but actually they got some nice raises in this horrible economy.
I kind of got a kick out of it for a few seconds; the only one’s making more money this year than last are people working for non-profits, until I remembered, I was helping pay their salaries to the turn of $15k Per year.
Here are the specifics with the top 5 salaries for the year ending June 30, 2008 with the 2 years prior.
Amy Stathos (Senior Counsel), $223,307 compensation with $49,846 contributions to employee benefit plans. 2) Theresa Swinehart (VP), $251,497 compensation with $62,916 contributions to employee benefit plans. 3) David Conrad (VP), $197,779 compensation with $53,028 contributions to employee benefit plans. 4) Denise Michel (VP), $235,722 compensation with $52,500 contributions to employee benefit plans, and $115,649 expense account (in the note, it says that the expense account was meant to tax neutralize her payments during her overseas assignment in the prior fiscal year. 5) Daniel Halloran (Deputy Gen. Counsel), $186,003 compensation with $60,536 contributions to employee benefit plans
George continues to point out for the year ending 6/30/2006, there were 20 employees paid over $50,000. The top 5 were: Name Compensation Contributions to benefit plan/deferred compensation Andrew Savage $132,914 $15,120 Theresa Swinehart $122,556 $24,881 David Piscitello $109,371 $19,531 David Conrad $106,250 $15,000 Tim Cole $95,201 $20,967 Totals for Top 5 $566,292 $95,499 For the year ending 6/30/2007, there were 37 employees paid over $50,000. The top 5 were: Name Compensation Contributions to benefit plan/deferred compensation Andrew Savage $188,385 $17,152 David R. Conrad $184,150 $35,677 Theresa C. Swinehart $231,695 $34,249 Denise M. Michel $198,330 $49,160 Amy A. Stathos $183,008 $36,139 Totals for Top 5 $985.568 $172,377 "This is an outrageous 74% increase year-over-year for total compensation for the top 5." Yup I agree George. Hope someone in Congress picks this up.
Well you gotta get compensated for creating new gTLDS.
This new cash cow for ICANN deserves compensation.
RICO , RICO, RICO !!!!!
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
Is this possible George ? It seems that way to me.
Actually, the non-profits were largely hit by the likes of Madoff who mishandled their funds living them stripped. Otherwise, the non-profits and their executives make healthy income. ICANN is no exception and they enjoy luxurious salaries in a monopolistic market.
Why just hope someone in Congress picks it up? Hope is for lottery ticket holders. Send it to your U.S. representative, its a snap. Heck, that is what they are there for. George can’t do it, he’s Canadian.
Anthony
Of course none of this compensation reflects and of the new income that would come in with the new gTLD’s.
I expect that those funds will enable ICANN to do better than just 74% increase in conpensation
Acro
That’s quite true and very sad for those non-profits. Many non-profits lost a large amount of their funds with Madoff and has to cut staff and services way down.
In this case of ICANN they just lost $4.5 Million of our money in the market and rewarded the top 5 with a 74% increase
Mr. Black
This will be passed on to the ICA who can inform elected officials of the situation
Note that Paul Twomey and others were making quite a bit too. See the original article at CircleID, i.e.
http://www.circleid.com/posts/how_is_icann_spending_your_money/
which links to the original posts on the Business Constituency mailing list, and also to the full IRS Form 990 disclosure statement.
If you read the comments to that CircleID article, you have an ICANN staffer and another person receiving funds from ICANN defending their compensation, suggesting that I’m the only one that has a problem with their excess spending. Obviously, one can’t convince ICANN of this obvious truth, but hopefully the people that matter will take notice.
George
On behalf of all domain holders I thank you for keeping up with all that ICANN does.
Thanks for the kind words, Mike. You’re not chopped liver either — your blog keeps everyone quite informed.
If these people were working for a major corporation, they would be receiving compensation like this.
And, I doubt most domainers would complain about the salaries if we felt we were getting something for it.
I believe the problem is that we feel they are taking our money and at the same time selling us down the river.
Domain
I think its the increase in compensation that is the biggest issue for me during a time where people are just happy to hang on to their jobs, 74% increase is outrageous.
Moreover this is not a major corporation, (presumably public) but a non-profit privately held corporation with a monopoly in its field.
Due to that they have a different duty than a for profit public corporation.
I’m at a loss on why any non-profit should see wage increases above the inflation rate. With the salaries they’re paying these guys, they can hardly say the increases are necessary to retain “top talent”. I admit to being largely ignorant about what ICANN does however I just can’t wrap my mind around how we’re getting value for our money.
Rather than come out with all these silly new extensions to raise money, ICANN should have made VeriSign split the .com revenue with them 50-50, else the contract goes to someone else when it comes back up for renegotiation. We already know there are many volunteers to manage the extension in the $2-$4 range, so why should VeriSign get more than that?
Mike,
Yes, of course the ICA can do let some congressmen know. But its up to private citizens to let their own representative know, its the simple duty of an informed electorate. This is why reps supposedly represent people. Hearing it from a lobby group is one thing, hearing this kind of outrage from multple private citizens is quite another. There is no downside to multiple attack angles, only an upside.
Just go to http://www.house.gov and http://www.senate.gov
All that money and they do a crappy job of governing.
At the very least, we can set a rule to cap it at 100k and no more given it is a non-profit …
The salaries themselves (and the 74% increase in particular) signal what is going on there. “Fleecing of America” is the phrase I believe. ICANN have surfaced as the playground of rich kids … with the ever-present bratty attitude.
On one of the CircleID posts, ICANN tried to dis’ George by referring to him as a “constituency of one”. LOL. Apparently they have no idea the influences converging against their inept decisions. A healthy organization would acknowledge & correct the valid concerns he has raised … instead of hiding and attacking. One of which was tiered pricing, which they mocked. Enough said.