Administrative Staff at GCASA provide exceptional service at lower than average executive salaries

Dopkins and Company, an accounting firm in Buffalo, NY, has done a CFR (Consolidated Fiscal Report) benchmarking report of state funded not-for-profit agencies in Western, NY for the 2007 - 2008 fiscal year.

Out of a potential pool of 350 not-for-profit agencies, 72 agencies agreed to participate in the study, GCASA being one.

There are some interesting findings which I want to report to our taxpayers who wonder whether they are getting their money's worth in supporting GCASA's mission and services.

I will be writing a series of reports because the data can be overwhelming if it is presented all at once.

First as regards to GCASA's administrative staff it is significant that GCASA's administrative staff are all paid  at or below the average for other not-for-profits.

For example, GCASA's executive director is compensated at a rate of $38.91 per hour as compared to $63.30 per hour in the region. When compared to small (less than $10,000,000), medium ($10,000,000 - $20,000,000) and large (over $20,000,000) agencies, GCASA's executive salary is much less than the salary of the average small agency salary which is $51.73, medium size agency salary which is $63.34, and large agency salary which is $76.73.

GCASA's executive director declined a salary increase for 2010 in spite of the fact that he already is one of the lowest paid executive director's in Western New York not-for-profits.

In spite of the low executive salary, the agency has won national awards for its Drug Free Communities Coalition and for its Outpatient Treatment Clinic in Genesee County. Are the taxpayers getting extraordinary value as compared to other communities in Western New York? It appears so in regards to the indicator of Administrative Salaries.

This is article #1 in a series on Not-For Profit Benchmarking report