An arsenal of 18 City Council members forked over $266,214 in member items to the nonprofit group Chess-in-the-Schools in the city budget adopted last month — one of the largest infusions of council cash to any single nonprofit.
The program has reeled in $2,172,357 in taxpayer dollars from the city and state since 2006, according to budget records.
“They are very vocal and driven. The pushier you are, the more you get,” said one City Hall insider.
Despite the taxpayer largesse, the charity forced cash-strapped schools to ante up more than $100,000 to continue chess lessons for third- and sixth-graders, tax documents show.
Marley Kaplan, the group’s executive director, runs the program, which teaches kids from 50 poor city schools how to play chess.
When she first took the job in 1994, fawning press reports trumpeted how she sacrificed her six-figure Wall Street salary for a $25,000 part-time gig at the chess program.
But her annual pay has since ballooned to $226,800 — more than the $213,000 earned by Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott. Kaplan says it’s fair compensation because she performs three jobs, those of executive director, CFO and director of development.
The vice president of programs pulled down $131,000 last year, and the VP of administration made $95,870, according to tax filings. The group’s 15 chess instructors start at $25 an hour and are directly supervised by four administrators.
The group leases half a floor in the Garment District for $240,000 a year, according to their tax filings. The space includes a patio, new computers and plenty of unneeded space, according to former instructor Chris Kerrigan.
“These offices are palatial,” said Kerrigan, who says he was fired after complaining about the bureaucracy.
In 2009, the program — which had been free for 25 years — started charging schools $2,500 each to participate, citing hard economic times.
It collected $103,500 in fees from schools last year, records show; two schools had to drop out.
Kaplan said the group eliminated six administrators since 2008 and negotiated a better deal on their lease, saving $423,700 a year.
They scaled back the number of school sites so they could expand their tournament program and teach other schools how to duplicate the chess lessons, she added. More than 100 schools are on the waiting list.
“We’ve reviewed every possible place to reduce expenses and add revenue,” she said.
Source: http://www.nypost.com
This is bad, very bad. No way should the people involved with this program be making those salaries, and the offices as described – excessive in the extreme. They have turned their backs on the kids and turned what was an excellent program into cushy administrative jobs for themselves at the expense of the schools (and of course the children who attend those schools)that can no longer afford to pay for the program, that used to be free. Absolutely riduculous! I don’t deny anyone the right to make a decent living, but if Marley wants to make lots of money each year, she should have stayed in her former profession! Every school that is forced to drop out of the program because it can no longer afford these ridiculous fees means hundreds of children are denied the possibility to learn chess.
They should donate their some of their salaries back to the children.
I’m sad to see people taking advantage of kids.
I’m sure there’re plenty of people ready to do her job just as well for 1/3 the income. Is there a board involved here or does she just set her own salary to whatever she wants?
The $25 an hour for instructors sounds better than it is. You are a contract employee, only paid that when you in front of a classroom. You get no sick days, no holiday pay, no summer pay. I made around $25G a year and was fired for advocating for health benefits, durring which I pointed out to them many of the figures in this article (in which I am quoted, Damrosch is a pen name).
I think only chess people REALLY get how bad this is. CIS is in less than 5% of NYC schools, yet dominates all levels of funding both public and private.
I would appeal to you to write a letter to their board members listed on CIS’s website and ask for new leadership to clean house at what should be one of our shinning chess institutions.
This is a travesty. Clearly, this organization (which I am sure had ethics at one time) is now run by greed alone. I have never heard of ANYONE in the nonprofit sector drawing that sort of annual salary.
The ones who are being hurt, of course, are the kids… the ones the program is intended to help. It is a travesty that the schools are forced to kickback funds to CIS… as far as I can see, that money goes directly into Ms. Kaplan’s pocket.
I happen to know that Marley Kaplan is married to an attorney. I can only imagine the kind of annual income the two of them are making!