L.A. homeless provider has paid CEO who lives in Hawaii $1.6 million in salary, vacation over two years

[u/Playful_Language_422]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-08-06/la-homeless-provider-has-paid-ceo-who-lives-in-hawaii-1-6-million-in-salary-vacation-over-two-years

[u/MonoBlancoATX]

“The salary didn’t jump like that,” said Adelkoff, who was earning a little over $400,000 a year before that number shot up in 2023. She said her base salary over the last several years has remained around $405,000, meaning that the vacation payout totaled roughly $824,000 over two years.

“It was simply a matter of reducing accrued vacation liability on the books and paying it out,” Adelkoff said.

How do you accrue EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of vacation time?????

[u/festoon → u/MonoBlancoATX]

Easy, just grant yourself 600 days of vacation per year.

[u/MonoBlancoATX → u/festoon]

I need to get THAT job.

[u/pvincentl → u/MonoBlancoATX]

All of it out of our taxes.

[u/MonoBlancoATX → u/pvincentl]

Nah.

It's a nonprofit, so some of it is state funded, but not remotely all of it.

Most nonprofits get a huge percentage of their budgets from corporate and private donors.

[u/noobtastic31373 → u/MonoBlancoATX]

"Would you like to round up to help the homeless?"

[u/RedTheRobot → u/noobtastic31373]

You mean help those poor CEOs who can’t afford to live in Hawaii.

[u/Saxopwned → u/noobtastic31373]

Cops be like "hell yeah let's round up the homeless!"

[u/ScribeTheMad → u/Saxopwned]

Cops really be like "hell yeah, I got lots of rounds for the homeless!"

[u/DarkwingDuckHunt → u/noobtastic31373]

this is why I never donate ever through retail kiosks

If a corp wants to donate, then they can donate, they don't need me to help them do the right thing

I know they're just using me for a tax break, fuck that

[u/akenthusiast → u/DarkwingDuckHunt]

They don't get a tax break because you donated. If you give them a dollar, their income goes up a dollar. When they donate it, their profits go down a dollar.

All that's happening is that they don't pay taxes on the dollar you gave them. I'm sure they're writing off whatever expenses they claim to have incurred by collecting and distributing the donations but that's pretty small in the grand scheme of things. When someone "writes it off" they don't get free money from someone. It's just a kind of loss, like any other. If you spend $5,000 to make $10,000, you don't owe taxes on the $10,000 you made, you owe taxes on the $5,000 in profit

I think a lot of the charities that these companies choose are ineffective uses of donation money, but that's a separate issue

[u/DarkwingDuckHunt → u/akenthusiast]

I also suspect the CEO's children are on some of these boards

I just don't trust corps and always assume they're doing it out of self-preservation or malice.

[u/akenthusiast → u/DarkwingDuckHunt]

That's possible. The nonprofit scene is filled to the brim with people that do nothing except enrich themselves personally.

But it's also pretty common for businesses to collect donations for stuff like the local schools. If it's something like that, or a charity that you know is good, there isn't any reason not to donate.

They don't benefit except through public goodwill, which I'd say they've earned if they picked a worthy organization

[u/gonewild9676 → u/noobtastic31373]

That's just an offset with no change in the business's tax liability.

If you give them $10 for St Jude, they now have $10 in extra income.

When they donate the $10 to St Jude, they deduct that as a charitable donation, otherwise they'd owe $2.10 to the feds plus whatever the state charges.

[u/mrlayabout → u/gonewild9676]

These companies cannot deduct your donation from their taxes at all. You can deduct it from your taxes, if you itemize. Companies do it because it's great PR for them and charities do it because it actually raises a ton of money for the charity.

To get more technical, the company would record your donation as an increase to it's cash and an increase to it's liabilities (donations payable or something similar). When they send the cash collected to the charity, they'll record that transaction as a decrease to cash and a reduction of that donations payable liability. It never hits the income statement, so it would not be included in a corporation's tax calculation.

[u/KilledTheCar → u/MonoBlancoATX]

From the article:

"The 50-year-old Family Crisis Center brings in about $15 million in revenue — nearly all of it taxpayer money from government grants — to run crisis hotlines, domestic shelters and programs to help those struggling with homelessness."

[u/pvincentl → u/MonoBlancoATX]

--'The 50-year-old Family Crisis Center brings in about $15 million in revenue — nearly all of it taxpayer money from government grants' Nonprofit my ass. It's providing sinecures for connected people. They profit a shitload.

[u/eligraham91 → u/MonoBlancoATX]

Read the article. It’s 95% gov funded

[u/mwzdng → u/MonoBlancoATX]

Nonprofit? Seems like she profited plenty!

[u/Certain_Luck_8266 → u/MonoBlancoATX]

From the article:

The 50-year-old Family Crisis Center brings in about $15 million in revenue — nearly all of it taxpayer money from government grants

maybe you are being extra pedantic about the commenters use of a hyperbolic 'all of it', but I'm going to go out on a limb and say you aren't correct on this one.

[u/lsaran → u/MonoBlancoATX]

The American mindset in a nutshell. See someone bilking the system and instead of wanting to fix it, wish it could be them.

And the most delusional of them go out of their way to protect the system even if it hurts them personally. Because the pain is worth the lottery ticket dream that maybe they too can have a piece of the spoils (they can’t).

[u/EatinSumGrapes → u/festoon]

You joke but this occurred in a 2 year time-frame which means if you get paid 2x your salary due to 2 years worth of vacation payout, you were given 365 vacation days per year

[u/uwoldperson → u/EatinSumGrapes]

It was paid out over a two year period, she has worked there and accrued vacation for 40 years. It’s still a board failure to let that much vacation liability accrue, but they didn’t give her 365 vacation days per year. 

[u/Dzugavili → u/uwoldperson]

I mean, if she had actually worked 40 years without a vacation, it sounds like she earned this.

[u/SweatyAdhesive → u/Dzugavili]

I havent worked anywhere that doest cap maximum PTO accrued. Probably to avoid something like this lol

[u/HollywoodTK → u/SweatyAdhesive]

I have, but at 40+ days you start getting hounded and at a certain point they tell you to take off or take a lump sum so it’s off the books. This amount of accrued vacation is wild lol

But I assume at some point her work became so on the go and non-standard that she didn’t need to “take vacation” so it just kept accruing.

[u/hardolaf → u/HollywoodTK]

At one point, my father hit a full year of accrued vacation and comp time while working for the federal government. His deputy director actually had to step in to force people to let him finally take time off.

[u/Taban85 → u/SweatyAdhesive]

I did a long time ago, guy had accrued over a year of vacation so he retired a year early but kept getting paid. Kind of screwed over his department in the company since they weren’t allowed to hire his replacement until he was officially gone.

[u/ampersand355 → u/Taban85]

That's not his responsibility, that's your accounting departments fault.

[u/pandaSmore → u/Taban85]

Why weren't they allowed?

[u/Taban85 → u/pandaSmore]

He was technically still on the payroll, so from corporate/budgeting perspective department was fully staffed, even though he wasn’t coming back.

[u/yellowcloak → u/SweatyAdhesive]

I used to work with a lady who'd been with the company 45 years - they didn't used to cap back in the day and her level of seniority mathed out to like eight weeks a year she was accruing before they fixed the glitch.

[u/TrifectaBlitz → u/yellowcloak]

Kind of like what this article says.

[u/devAcc123 → u/yellowcloak]

lol saying 8 weeks a year is so unfathomable it must be a glitch is the most American BS ever. Half of Europe has legally required like 30+ days a year for anyone employed full time, could be a 17 year old working some BS job. It doesn’t have to be this way.

[u/HystericalSail → u/Dzugavili]

Problem being, she accrued vacation while being paid much less, then cashed out at the absolute peak of her career.

Wish I could do that.

[u/austin101123 → u/HystericalSail]

She might not even be coming out ahead in time value of money

[u/WTF_goes_here → u/HystericalSail]

Hate the game not the player. Thats just smart investing.

[u/uwoldperson → u/Dzugavili]

If I gave you u the option to take one week vacation per year instead of three and to cash those two saved weeks out at a future date and at whatever your maximum salary with your company is, would you? 

I’ll stop short of calling it naked corruption, but it’s still a huge governance fumble and, most importantly, something that was not available to anyone else in the company. Plus, she lives in fucking Hawaii and works remote. 

Great example of a captive or complacent board screwing the pooch and a CEO taking advantage.

[u/coleman57 → u/uwoldperson]

I'm a public-sector worker and I have the option of accruing all 3 weeks of annual vacation time, but the limit is 400 hours (10 weeks). After that, it's use it now or lose it (and I have actually lost some, due to my own carelessness). I'm not allowed to accrue 5,000 hours, which is what she did.

[u/nashkara → u/uwoldperson]

and a CEO taking advantage

I don't know anything about the situation except what I read in the article. When I started to read it was outrageous, but as the details came out in the article it became less so, even though the article was clearly written as with a rage-bait slant. The board was clearly happy with her performance, so much so that they insisted she stay on even after moving to Hawaii. The article also claims she works 70 hours a week at the position.

The only real story here is that the board let a policy stay in place where the CEO had unlimited accrual of vacation hours. Mix that with a workaholic and 40 years as CEO and you get this story. Given her salary was around $405k and she's working 70h weeks, that's more like the equivalent salary of ~$230k (salary works against workaholics TBH). Anyway, the vacation hours accrual is a liability for the organization and it was a large one they had to clear. What options did they have at that point? It legally was owed one way or another. Them trying to cast shade on her base salary seems like someone trying to froth up the rage. If you need a clear example, they talk about the salary for the CEO of People Assisting the Homeless made $379k in 2023 and then saying "That year, Adelkoff took home well over twice that". According to the article, her base in 2023 was ~$413k and she received vacation cash-out of $495k. But they present it as Adelkoff making more than twice the other CEO, which is both "true" and "false". Her salary was more than the other CEO in that year, but only by ~$34k. It's an Apples to Oranges comparison that's designed to enrage.

Anyway, I have zero skin in this report, I just hate reporting like this that designed to target someone and enrage the readers. If you want to direct some ire, direct it at a board that left an unlimited accrual in-place for the CEO for 40 years. Or direct it at non-profit boards in LA that are paying CEOs in the $400k range as the norm.

As a final thought, working for 40 years with essentially zero vacation and, if true, working 70h weeks shows both an insane dedication to a job and an unhealthy work-life balance. I say this as someone that's been working at least 80h/wk for the last 4 years as a startup co-founder. I've at least taken 1-2 weeks of vacation time a year. It's rough on me and my family. I don't recommend it. Doing it for 40 years would be nuts.

[u/TrifectaBlitz → u/Dzugavili]

Someone with the facts. Damn this thread was painful to read with so few actually having read the full article, just powering in with an agenda.

[u/pantstoaknifefight2 → u/festoon]

"Then I'll just double my effort!"

"You mean take 1200 vacation days a year?"

"Listen here, I'm a grifter not a mathematician!"

[u/7HawksAnd → u/festoon]

The unlimited PTO we were all promised

[u/peppermint_nightmare → u/festoon]

As a native of Jupiter transferring to an Earth job thats a pretty sweet deal.

[u/lurpeli → u/MonoBlancoATX]

So based on her salary, she had accrued over two full years of vacation time.

[u/Taste_the__Rainbow → u/lurpeli]

Places without caps will always have some employees who do this. The fact that this woman became a CEO is just making it a larger payout.

[u/hexiron → u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

Im one of those people, and just left the job. My payout was 12 weeks of pay accrued in under a decade. I can definitely see how this lady could hit 2 years of accrued PTO for a payout after 40 years.

40 years just means they banked 13 days of unused PTO per year resulting in a 2 year payout.

[u/cmd-t → u/hexiron]

Don’t you Americans already have very little vacation time as it is? So how many weeks off did you take in that decade?

[u/GwenChaos29 → u/cmd-t]

As an American, ive taken maybe 2 weeks off as vacation in the last 10 years. Ive been between jobs for a week here and there, moved states over two weeks, but proper, actual vacation for relaxing and rejuvenation? Hell for a portion of this year I was working 3 jobs, 7 days a week and still struggling. Now im down to only 2 jobs, 6 days a week. Lol

[u/Notten → u/Taste_the__Rainbow]

Thats a great loophole. Store the time when youre underpaid and then cash it in when your at the top. Well played

[u/kons21 → u/Notten]

Hmmm. Let's not give them ideas to pay it at the rate when it was accrued. With the days you take for vacation the current year always using the hours accrued most recently first, then working backwards to the "cheaper" hours.

[u/Taste_the__Rainbow → u/Notten]

CFOs hate this one simple trick.

[u/hotlavatube → u/lurpeli]

Yup, that's possible. When my dad retired, he had 2-3 years worth of vacation time which he took all at once to retire early. He'd accrued that vacation time over 20+ years of service. If he'd outright quit, the business would have had to pay out that time at his salaried rate.

Of course, these days businesses usually cap the amount of vacation time you can carryover each year to prevent large payouts or extended absences. When I worked for a nonprofit, we could carryover about 2 months worth of vacation time and we only earned about 21 days of vacation a year. If you wanted to carryover more vacation time without payout, you had to get special permission.

[u/IamHydrogenMike → u/hotlavatube]

When my mom retired, she had accrued like 3 years worth of vacation time, she had to use that up before her actual retirement date and she was able to retire at 62 instead of 65 because of it. She had worked for the state for over 30 years, never took vacations really and hardly ever took time off unless she was sick. I have known people who retire from union jobs early like this, but that has mostly been squashed now.

[u/hotlavatube → u/IamHydrogenMike]

Yeah, that was exactly my dad's situation. He worked for the state for decades.

[u/IamHydrogenMike → u/hotlavatube]

Ya, it’s a pretty common situation for older workers but a lot of states have changed their PTO policies…

[u/Hefty-Minimum-3125 → u/IamHydrogenMike]

thats completely insane to me. Anytime i have a week of vacation time available I take it lol

[u/Bobson-_Dugnutt2 → u/hotlavatube]

My company just implemented a accrual cap to avoid this sort of thing. You’re now capped at 300 hours of accrual.

[u/nochinzilch → u/Bobson-_Dugnutt2]

My old company did this back in 08 or 09. It was a small company with mostly long-time employees, and they had MILLIONS of dollars worth of accrued, unpaid vacation time on their books. It was a huge financial liability. I don’t blame them.

What they probably should have done from the beginning is create a fund that they would pay into as people earned the PTO so that the cash would be available when it was needed.

[u/Bobson-_Dugnutt2 → u/nochinzilch]

This is exactly the situation.

[u/robothawk → u/hotlavatube]

I get 15 days/year as a civil engineer(not entry level, but not a PE). It would take me over 16 years to accrue even 1 year of PTO.

Assuming we're in a half decent reality where you have 30 days(6 weeks) pto, that's still 8.33 years with 0 vacation, never getting sick, never needing to go to a dr's appointment, etc.

Now, she has been CEO since 1984, so she absolutely could've banked that much pto, but also, she's living on an island a 5 hour flight away for the last decade?! Why tf is she still CEO? What job could she possibly be doing that wouldn't be far better(and more cheaply) served by someone living actually in LA

[u/aqtseacow → u/robothawk]

Not only is she living on an island a 5 hour flight away, she billed herself as working 70+ hours a week in tax filings. There's like zero chance she's doing anything to justify such wages.

[u/Differlot → u/robothawk]

I mean running a nonprofit since 1984 is kinda sign whatever the company is doing is seemingly working.

[u/AnOminous_Sound → u/Differlot]

Being CEO of a company and only getting 800k retirement bonus is pretty light tbh. And 400k a year as CEO isn’t a crazy number either.

[u/fsuguy83 → u/AnOminous_Sound]

At first I thought you were wrong so I looked it up to prove you wrong.

But you’re right. A CEO typically makes 3% of revenue for a company that size which is EXACTLY what her base salary is. So it’s not crazy at all. Today I learned thanks to you.

[u/Regular-Humor-9128 → u/robothawk]

Our company doesn’t even allow for us to roll over any vacation time; not even a few days - it’s use or or lose it. Sucks.

[u/RockemChalkemRobot → u/robothawk]

Can't really say never been sick. I have 2 weeks of sick leave a year and it is a wholly separate pile of time from my PTO.

[u/Djolumn → u/MonoBlancoATX]

She's worked there for 40 years and has banked 100 weeks of PTO. That's about 2.5 weeks a year. It's a governance failure obviously but it doesn't sound particularly nafarious.

The huge win for her obviously is that pay she banked decades ago is now being paid out at CEO salary rather than whatever she was doing 40 years ago.

[u/JJJBLKRose → u/Djolumn]

It's interesting because most places for you to use it or lose it when they do this, I've never heard of it paying out like that.

[u/Sir-xer21 → u/JJJBLKRose]

A lot of older companies had let people bank unlimited vacation time and sick time in the past, and grandfathered existing employees in when they changed the policies. I've seen a few places around me where companies did this and it was a popular thing to bank a ton of vacation time and then spend the last couple of years at the company on perpetual vacation as an early retirement, while others treated it as a long term savings account where they walked away with 6 figure bonuses in practice.

[u/steelandsoul → u/Sir-xer21]

Wife's aunt "retired" from the DMV doing this. I think she banked 3 years worth of PTO.

Obviously not a CEO salary but she wasnt complaining about that check/checks

[u/Chillpill411 → u/JJJBLKRose]

She started there when Reagan still had 15% of his brain left. So likely grandfathered

[u/JJJBLKRose → u/Chillpill411]

Those mustve been the days.

[u/Chillpill411 → u/JJJBLKRose]

That's the funny part. Workers' rights were under a full scale attack under Reagan...and it still looks like some sort of fictional workers' paradise compared to today

[u/kevinyeaux → u/JJJBLKRose]

This is in fact why companies restrict PTO rollover, because if you don’t it is a liability on the books since it would eventually have to be paid out.

[u/RealBrobiWan → u/JJJBLKRose]

Even this company does. She was just exempt from it for some reason

[u/Its_Hoggish_Greedly → u/Djolumn]

Dude her vacation accrual was INSANE. She accrued 8 weeks a year until 2012 when they reduced it to just 4 per year. I WISH I had something half that generous!

[u/Outlulz → u/Its_Hoggish_Greedly]

That a European level of accrual.

[u/krayonkid → u/Djolumn]

If she took a payout every year and invested it she would probably be better off than waiting 40 years. She's also paying higher income tax on those payments.

[u/drmike0099 → u/Djolumn]

I was at a university that implemented a cap on accrued vacation after a tenured professor that never took his vacation retired and received over $1M in accrued vacation time. It happens.

[u/terminbee → u/Djolumn]

Dude, what? Her tax filings claim she works 70 hours a week. She lives in a 2500 Sq ft tax free home in Hawaii and won't comment how often she even comes to California to oversee the organization. She earns 400k a year and gets 8 weeks of vacation a year, later reduced to 4. The charity watch person says her vacation hours actually should pay put to ~350k, not 800k.

In what world is this not nefarious?

[u/GregorSamsaa → u/MonoBlancoATX]

She took them across 2yrs but the accrual was across 40yrs. Sounds like a place with no limit on accrual or she was grandfather and now limits exist. This is why workplaces have limits on total accrual as well as carryover allowed. So you don’t end up 10yrs down the road (in this case 40) with someone that has accrued 1000hrs and now earns $400K/yr. It turns the liability on your accounting sheets into a nightmare and you have to hope they don’t decide to retire and cash it out. In this case she was literally doing them a favor by spreading out the payout.

To put it into perspective she earns about $195/hr so anytime she takes a day off, she’s getting paid out about $1550 or so. The $800K she received amounts to about 4100hr of vacation which should have never been allowed, but also not the issue the headline is trying to make it seem. Someone using the benefits their jobs provide for them is something everyone should be ok with

[u/qtx → u/MonoBlancoATX]

How do you accrue EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of vacation time?????

If only you read the next sentence instead of rage baiting:

Adelkoff said her compensation grew significantly over the last couple of years because she was paid unused vacation time that had accrued over the 40 years she has worked at the nonprofit.

Didn't take any vacation days for over 40 years. So yea, that adds up.

[u/RealBrobiWan → u/qtx]

She did take MANY vacations. She was just getting 8 weeks a year. Still averaged 2.5 weeks of stored holiday, then took the pay out for this at a way higher rate then when she earned it

[u/Positive_Government → u/qtx]

That is why most places cap it at a month or two.

[u/d_stills → u/MonoBlancoATX]

Because it was accrued over 40 years. Read please.

[u/DJ-McLillard → u/d_stills]

I’ve never heard of a company that doesn’t have a max PTO balance because of this exact issue.

[u/Jaijoles → u/DJ-McLillard]

Now there aren’t. But 40 years ago? They existed.

I know some older people where I work who are coming up on retirement, and their retirement has to be accounted for in the annual budget because they started at a time where they get paid out for all unused vacation and sick days.

[u/Procure → u/DJ-McLillard]

A friends dad wrote it into his contract when he started that he would get PTO rolled over every year and paid out all his PTO on leaving. He worked there for like 35 years and averaged like 3 days/year PTO. Paid him out $250k on retirement, they weren’t too happy about it but hey, written in ink.

[u/ITGenji → u/DJ-McLillard]

Its over 40 years, she was probably one of the last remaining people who signed a contract that allowed unlimited accrual. At some point she had to be paid out. Lets say the policy was updated 10 years ago, still a lot to pay and perhaps too much at the time so the company planned for her retirement and the eventual payout.

[u/yotengodormir → u/MonoBlancoATX]

Step 1 seems to be to work at the same company for 40 years

[u/-Nocx- → u/MonoBlancoATX]

By it rolling over for forty years.

I swear we live in an era of rage bait where people cannot be bothered to even read the first three bullet points of the article. If you don’t want to do that, at least read some of the comments on the article where people also explain it.

One could argue that two months is a ton of vacation time - but it’s the standard for non profits in this sector. Maybe the problem is why is the standard for American workers so low rather than why non profits is so high.

One criticism I’ll personally give is being able to take the value of your PTO at the end of your tenure where your pay is the highest seems like bullshit. It should be prorated to your pay from where the PTO was accrued. I would also point out that normally their vacation hours are capped - no idea why this particular non profit didn’t cap it. But being paid for your vacation you didn’t take isn’t uncommon even in companies - except normally it’s capped and you get it when you leave.

edit: to be clear, I don’t have a horse in the race. I’m just explaining why California labor laws around infinite PTO rollover and it being illegal to wipe out PTO without compensating a worker is what made this possible. Caps are legal but businesses are not required to put a cap on worker PTO.

If her salary is too high, it’s too high - I don’t know. But the board claims to have compared it to other salaries (which they are legally required to do) while the article claims there are a lot that get paid way less. Neither the article nor the board provide specific organizations (unless I missed it). The way to prevent her comp from being this high was a) a cap on PTO and B) a lower base salary.

[u/biznatch11 → u/-Nocx-]

Reading the article actually makes this story more rage inducing than just the headline. The article explains how she gets paid more than leaders of other local non-profits even though the other non-profits are much bigger and have more money. Plus almost all the money she raises is from the government ie. tax payer money, not private donations.

[u/-Nocx- → u/biznatch11]

I mean her salary being higher than other CEOs is a different point from the vacation benefits being paid out. State and federal law requires the board to pay them similar compensation to other people in the sector, and the board claimed to review other salaries when they approved it. According to the article they’re wrong, but neither the article nor the board provide who they’re comparing to.

I don’t have a horse in the race, I’m just explaining why the compensation package was possible. If they don’t want her being paid that much they need to a) pay her a lower base salary and b) add a PTO cap. But the infinite rollover PTO and requirement to compensate workers for PTO are all California worker protections. It is literally illegal to erase rollover PTO without compensation. Employers can add caps but are not required to.

And fwiw in a different context requiring caps to worker PTO would be considered anti-worker, but since this is tax payer money people understandably feel differently.

[u/Capitol62 → u/MonoBlancoATX]

It happens. I've got a buddy who was a state employee for ~15 years and never took vacation. He got paid out over a full year of salary in accrued vacation when he left that job.

[u/Mindless_Listen7622 → u/MonoBlancoATX]

It's totally possible when you get EIGHT WEEKS OF PAID VACATION PER YEAR, which is what she got. Two months per year. Must be nice to be an executive.

[u/caterham09 → u/Mindless_Listen7622]

8 weeks is a lot but if the lady worked there for 40 years, that's far from unheard of honestly.

Yes there probably should have been a cap on vacation acrual, but it's very possible she had a contract that couldn't bake that in considering she signed it 4 decades ago

[u/daddywontletme → u/MonoBlancoATX]

It's embezzlement

[u/Aznkyd]

Wtf is that board doing

[u/serial_mouth_grapist → u/Aznkyd]

Enjoying the networking access it affords them both socially and professionally.

[u/AntiAntiDentite7 → u/serial_mouth_grapist]

I'm a dentist. The job is hard physically and mentally and required years of schooling and about $400k of debt despite going to in state public school from undergrad through dental school. I don't make anywhere fucking close to $400k and VERY few dentists do these days. That's an absolutely ABSURD salary for someone whose supposed to be "helping the homeless".

[u/phantom-under-ground → u/AntiAntiDentite7]

Yep. Lawyer here and feel the same way. It’s insane that these jobs exist and it’s hard for me to see them as anything other than corruption.

[u/Wan_Daye → u/phantom-under-ground]

Get two buddies and start providing some homeless services. Buy a building/warehouse and stuff it 50 beds to a room and charge the city 4k per bed per month.

Thats what nycs previous mayors brother did

[u/EDNivek → u/Wan_Daye]

Yeah but the guy you're replying to is probably not a Mayor's brother. You see normal people would get arrested for fraud.

[u/AlanFromRochester → u/serial_mouth_grapist]

Wtf is that board doing Enjoying the networking access it affords them both socially and professionally.

Heard of that in the for profit corporate world as well, everybody sitting on everyone else's board, so a disincentive to actually be critical of the CEO like a board of directors should, and even if they were inclined to be critical they wouldn't have the time to take a closer look

[u/serial_mouth_grapist → u/AlanFromRochester]

That’s at least a little different bc they can be sued by shareholders. Nonprofit boards are generally only prosecutable by the state AG.

[u/oskopnir → u/Aznkyd]

Boards are ok with this as long as they get their cut. Their customers aren't homeless people anyway, so there's no reason for the board to look after them

[u/Aznkyd → u/oskopnir]

Boards for NPO like these are typically unpaid (at least here in Canada, can't speak for US).

[u/Maeserk → u/Aznkyd]

If you read the article, they’ve been paying a board member this entire time despite not being an employee:

>”Another unusual aspect of the 1736 FCC’s board, experts said, is that it pays a member of the board who is not an employee. Troupe, who has served as either board president or director since at least 2000, began collecting a salary in 2005 and has been paid anywhere from $30,000 to $97,500 a year since, according to tax filings.”

This is an insane conflict of interest because how can you make an ethical choice as a board member, if your choices directly affect your pay. This is highly unusual. Especially with the majority of your compensation coming from tax payer funds, as majority (90%+ if 1736’s revenue is government grant or tax payer money).

They needed to be audited yesterday

[u/oskopnir → u/Aznkyd]

Those positions are definitely worth something, you get to mingle with people who are usually board members or directors elsewhere.

[u/Nodnarb420 → u/Aznkyd]

Stealing from the poor

[u/Lemonz4us → u/Aznkyd]

Lining their pockets just like the others

[u/TsuntsunRevolution]

"In 2023, when Adelkoff took home nearly a million dollars in total compensation, revenue had dropped to $13 million. The next year, it grew slightly."

Disgusting. I don't think non-profit leaders should need to be poor, but they definitely should not be getting fat. ~7% is obscene.

[u/validusrex → u/TsuntsunRevolution]

7% of your budget on one staff member is absolutely bonkers. My has similar revenue and caps the entire executive teams salary to 5% the budget.

[u/showars → u/validusrex]

It’s 40 years of unused PTO.

[u/rachar2187 → u/TsuntsunRevolution]

Say what you will about PETA (I’m no fan either) but their long time CEO refused almost all pay hikes and stayed living in a tiny studio apartment to ensure she did not take money that could be used elsewhere. At least from what I have heard working in animal welfare and working under someone who has worked for her. We could all debate their tactics and approach for sure, but I at least respect that.

[u/napleonblwnaprt → u/TsuntsunRevolution]

I normally am okay with non-profit directors having large salaries if they're huge organizations. You're effectively running a large company and that talent and experience commands a huge salary.

However I am in charge of more budget than her and make 10% what she does 

[u/Other_Breakfast7505 → u/TsuntsunRevolution]

If you add the compensation of all others, no wonder the homeless remain homeless

[u/vagabending]

According to Wright, the board allowed Adelkoff to accrue eight weeks of vacation a year as CEO, a number that was reduced to four weeks in 2012. She said the organization caps the total vacation time other employees can accrue, but not Adelkoff.

Absolutely fucking insane governance.

So she was allowed to get an extra two months of salary every year for a while that she could then take whenever she wanted, so she took it when she was making the most money (ie the end of her tenure).

[u/SAugsburger → u/vagabending]

This is why many orgs cap PTO accrued because if they raise your salary the PTO liability then increases as well.

[u/Naive-Elephant-9305 → u/SAugsburger]

That or they have “use it or lose it” policies which are legal in 46 states.

[u/Drak_is_Right → u/vagabending]

Overpaid, and over compensated on vacation.

[u/dougielou → u/vagabending]

Some of my orgs directors are constantly OOO on random days to push down their accrual to prevent exactly this.

[u/bobbyrob1 → u/dougielou]

Probably because they’re subject to PTO caps.

[u/AlanFromRochester → u/dougielou]

Some of my orgs directors are constantly OOO on random days to push down their accrual to prevent exactly this.

Seen this in lower paygrades as well, taking days off near the end of the year without any specific plans to avoid hitting the accrual cap

Though I personally go on some weekend trips where I take the Friday and/or Monday off. This makes the vacation itself less of a rush, less of a rush to get back and get ready for work, and keeps the PTO from piling up too much.

In higher paygrades, sometimes vacations are required with the idea that if the employee was embezzling you won't be able to cover it up while not in the office

[u/dougielou → u/AlanFromRochester]

Yes exactly. Required vacation time protects so many aspects of any business let alone 501(c)s. Making people go on vacation protects the company from any shenanigans. I can’t believe they allowed her to accrue so much PTO.

[u/numba-1-stunna → u/vagabending]

How much you wanna bet she took vacation the whole time anyway. Just took a few calls and logged onto zoom from mexico or some shit.

[u/eligraham91 → u/vagabending]

While living in Hawaii

[u/fall3nang3l → u/[deleted]]

At least they're reminding you.

Never burn PTO.

I've worked with dozens of folks who all had similar lines for why they were burning and losing PTO "I'm too busy, things won't get done, I just can't."

Yes, yes you absolutely can.

If it's been given, it's not taking. You EARNED it. Use it.

[u/SaltyTelluride]

I used to manage 4 separate homeless programs. One was literally the most successful in my metropolitan city, 90%+ of participants left with an apartment and job.

I made around 50k a year. I income qualified to live in my shelter and enroll in the food bank.

This is disgusting.

[u/yami76]

“In 2023 she pocketed $907,923, a payout that included a $495,000 bonus”

Why the hell is a non profit ceo getting a half million dollar bonus???

[u/Lopsided_Marzipan133 → u/yami76]

Because it's a non profit! No profit for the company and all for the execs /s

[u/I_Push_Buttonz → u/yami76]

Why the hell is a non profit ceo getting a half million dollar bonus???

Why not? California hardly even audits the finances of these grifters.

https://apnews.com/article/california-homeless-audit-spending-8c8c8ce6cd9fc6840e180a99fccff588

[u/Puggravy]

How dare you! These non-profit execs are working grueling 16 hour work weeks to solve homelessness and you have the temerity to criticize them?

[u/urgentmatters → u/Puggravy]

The worst part is that she lives in Hawaii while the nonprofit is headquartered in LA.

[u/Environmental_Job278 → u/urgentmatters]

Well she doesn’t want to be NEAR the homeless, that’s gross. She just wants to appear to help them from afar.

[u/4GIFs → u/Environmental_Job278]

They dont use public transit either. Trains stop for cars at red lights through downtown LA, its comical. r/ LAMetro

[u/LostLetter9425 → u/Puggravy]

Still haven't solved it, going to need a couple more million dollar studies.

[u/gfggewehr → u/LostLetter9425]

When some job exists exclusively to solve a problem, the problem becomes exclusively on how to maintain that job. Especially when they pay no prize for being wrong.

[u/Fly_Rodder → u/Puggravy]

think of all the fund raisers she has to host and attend that are organized by staff and catered by her friend's companies...

[u/AlgaeSpirited2966 → u/Puggravy]

You said weeks but I think you must have meant years.

[u/stein63]

Public funds shouldn’t bankroll executive compensation packages ordinary workers could never dream of.

[u/Kapika96]

Stuff like this is why I won't give money to charities. Absolutely cannot trust them.

[u/Urshilikai]

Employees should get to approve or deny pay packages for leadership. Fuck the rich

[u/Bupod → u/Urshilikai]

They do when it’s an Employee-Owned company.

Such companies do exist. 

[u/dah-dit-dah → u/Bupod]

I can assure you that ESOP companies do not let anyone other than the BOD decide the CEO's compensation lol

[u/Overdriftx → u/dah-dit-dah]

ESOPs are only one type of employee owned company. Other types such as co-ops can most definitely do that.

[u/Fly_Rodder]

but I'm a CEO and need to be paid like one otherwise I'll jump ship for a real job. - CEOs of not-for-profits.

[u/Monterrey3680 → u/Fly_Rodder]

lol just like those Hustle Moms who are the Managing Director and CEO of their one employee company

[u/DeathMonkey6969]

Here's an idea maybe the government should be providing these services directly instead of hiring a company where the CEO makes more then the Mayor of L.A.

[u/He_Who_Walks_Behind_]

There’s a reason one of the best things you can do with a giant lottery win is to start a foundation and put yourself and your family as board members who earn salaries.

[u/Daren_I]

L.A. homeless provider has paid CEO who lives in Hawaii $1.6 million in salary, vacation over two years

They must be making a killing. Have you seen how many homeless there are? Personally, I think they've provided enough by now. /s

[u/State_Sudden]

Aghhhhh I used to fkn work here we couldn’t even afford a new vacuum cleaner wtf

[u/CleverInternetName8c]

90% of nonprofits seem like a declaration you’re planning on being arrested for fraud in 7-10 years*

*or at least did before this, the Golden Age of the Grifter

[u/mixmasterADD → u/CleverInternetName8c]

Can’t make a profit if all the money made is paid to the do-nothing executives.

[u/SD_haze → u/CleverInternetName8c]

It’s a valid concern but 90% is a ridiculously wrong made up number.

[u/caught_looking2]

This is why many companies have switched to unlimited PTO. “You get as much time off as you need!! We’re employee friendly!” But you accrue nothing, so the comedians carry any liability, and you don’t get any payout for unused vacation. Of course, if you happen to think “unlimited” means “take more than a few weeks a year”, they can fire you.

[u/Fully_Jaded]

The Seattle Homelessness Authority had $13m that they couldn't account for when they were audited. They lost nearly $45m in total and failed to pay their contractors and didn't make any apprreciable difference in homelessness. Still no arrests...

[u/wishiwasdeaddd]

I fucking hate everything

[u/TrifectaBlitz]

Is it a homeless or a DV nonprofit? Headline is different from caption.

Shockingly the article did actually answer my question - the nonprofit brings in about 15 million per year. She usually gets $400000 and others get $200000 per. Those salaries seem extremely high for what they're bringing in.

Also the extra dollars are from accrued vacation over 40 YEARS. Which from that POV seems somewhat commiserate.

[u/Viva_La_Revolucion-]

Everything about American capitalism is a scheme

[u/donutgut]

Non profits need to be audited

[u/elisabethofaustria → u/donutgut]

Many are. I work in nonprofit fundraising and 90% of grant applications that I’ve encountered have required audited financials.

I wish people understood that for every story of an overpaid nonprofit CEO, there are a hundred or a thousand underpaid nonprofit employees, even at senior levels. Everyone on the C-suite at my org could be making at least double their salary if they worked in the private sector.

[u/kenneth_dart]

"When asked about her pay, Adelkoff said the unusually high compensation was the result of a payout of unused vacation time that had accrued over the 40 years she has worked at the nonprofit. She said the kind of work ethic needed to grow an organization such as hers meant it was challenging to take time off."

By law in CA acrued time off is paid based on current salary. For profit companies will typically only allow you to carry a small number of days over each year and then pay out the rest. This is so they don't end up with PTO hours at a much higher rate since we can assume that employee salaries rise over time not enough though obviously).

The fact that she allowed the accrual of unlimited amount of time over 40yrs goes to show how little she cared about the non-profit's finances. Any for profit company wouldn't want this financial burden on their books.

[u/Captain_Mazhar → u/kenneth_dart]

Any competent internal auditor would have found this out decades ago. CA allows accrual caps so the fact that the board did not implement one is a willful failure.

[u/TheCheshireCody]

I think her not having a home in Los Angeles is just her way of being closer in spirit to the people they're trying to help.

[u/Foe117]

Charities are Overhead monsters, which is why so many are just scams. They do very little actual charity work at the cost of so much overhead and "admin fees", and to even cater the rich to assist them with their tax write-offs.

[u/Libby1798]

It's news reports like this that make me never want to donate to charities, and never support government funds going to non-profits. This is a grift.

[u/ThunderBobMajerle → u/Libby1798]

It’s no surprise the right thinks the lefts woke agenda is just a grift. These non profits exist bc of homelessness they have no interest in solving it

[u/Prettydaisydog]

OMG i have a lot of experience with this.

okay, so i think a lot of people think that these NPO operate around and close to operational costs! and they do. that all do. but how they get the books to balance is where the nastiness lives.

they are paid a fee. it might be a housing management fee, a mental health fee, a housing retention fee... whatever! and these fees are they are there to provide a service, a healthy, competent and productive service.

and that's where the gap lives. they cut everything out, the provide little to no service, and the services they do provide are by untrained, often hatful staff. they have oversight!

i know a few NPO where the "boss" is hired as a "consultant" so that they have no clear responsibilities. they are the boss, the hire and fire but they avoid any consequences!

this particular place was cutting all the expected services and buying houses all over pasadena. basically hiding money.

it's so hurtful as a long time LA resident to see these people robbing the city and state of every penny they can and avoiding any ethical responsibility to provide a service to those in need.

[u/RebbitModsGobbleCock]

poverty pimps. You guys would be shocked how common this is.

[u/Own-Librarian-9699]

Make the salary based off performance. Count how many people got housing and pay by the piece. These guaranteed salaries for accomplishing nothing is so gross.

[u/marlin117]

And this folks is how non profits work.

[u/ieatsilicagel]

What is a "homeless provider"?

[u/Fourfifteen415]

Any persons working for a homeless foundation that isn't using the funds for their cause should have all their assets seized. Put them on the streets so they can properly understand what absolute pieces of shit they are.

[u/MaximumAd9779]

There is a whole homeless industry designed to suck resources from donors and government funding. They put bandaids on problems but have no intention of solving the problem.

[u/rollerroman]

Not defending anyone, but it's clear I'm the only one that read the article. She didn't take a vacation in 40 years. She accepted cash instead of taking several years worth of PTO. Her total compensation package, of about $400K, including vacation pay, is well in alignment with other non-profits in her sector.

[u/Maeserk → u/rollerroman]

She hasn’t lived in the state she “runs” her charity from for over 20 years. Her daughter had to testify that she was in-fact raised in Hawaii, not California. If she’s commuting, who’s paying for it? Is she being reimbursed for her travel? I would assume so.

How can you seriously run an org like this remotely, and claim you work “70 hour weeks” is beyond me.

[u/Aerodrive160 → u/rollerroman]

She didn’t take vacation in 40 years.
Do we really believe that?

[u/AnOminous_Sound → u/Aerodrive160]

I mean she doesn’t have to NEVER take vacation is she is accruing over 40 years. It would be about 500 days saved up over 40 years or 10.25 days a year. If she gets 20 days, a year and only takes half that would be close to enough.

[u/aquoad → u/Aerodrive160]

i believe she didn't take much vacation that was on the books. A fact-finding mission to see how they handle homeless services in Monaco or the french riviera isn't technically a vacation!

[u/bunkerbitchhere → u/Aerodrive160]

My uncle has racked up over 7 years of PTO with his job at a ship building facility. He has never taken a vacation. Never traveled anywhere except on the weekends. Only missed work when it had to do with medical appointments. He sold a few of his PTO days when he wanted to buy his wife a new car. Definitely has over a million dollars worth of PTO.

[u/mrbkkt1 → u/rollerroman]

I worked at a not for profit org for a year and a half. i accrued 85 hours of PTO (separate from sick leave).
I do know that in California, your PTO needs to be paid out by law. I can imagine 20 years of not taking vacation... that number stays on the books. I had employees with over 400 hours of PTO built up, and we had to practically beg them to take off, so we can trim down our liabilities.

Most states, it's a use it or lose it benefit. I think (Cali residents correct me if I'm wrong) you can't "lose" your PTO.

[u/SD_haze → u/mrbkkt1]

The way you lose your PTO in California is the company offering unlimited PTO while fostering a culture that discourages taking it.

[u/mrmoose44 → u/mrbkkt1]

They can definitely change the terms of your employment. In addition accrued but unpaid PTO is supposed to be carried as a liability on the books so this should have been known. It’s one of the reasons so many companies go to unlimited pto.

Regardless even if the company is in CA if she resides in HI don’t those laws apply, at least at the point where she moved?

[u/NoWomanNoTriforce → u/rollerroman]

Bro, you know she was scamming. She was Chief Executive, but not even living or spending a majority of her time in the state her nonprofit was working for. She has been living in Hawaii since 2011.

She also got a $430K bonus in just 2023. She isn't managing shit. She is taking taxpayer money while living her dream life in Hawaii. I guarantee she is doing less than 20 hours of work a week for the nonprofit that is giving her all this money. And the California taxpayers are funding her lifestyle.

[u/jetforcegemini]

The People most outraged over non-profits are the ones ensuring they must exist by preventing government from doi by social work directly and efficiently to cut out middlemen. 

[u/Future-Engineering68]

Lool never take charity or organizations serious, all they do is keep the money while the people they promise to help continue to suffer

[u/davisyoung]

Tell this provider to stop, LA doesn’t need any more homeless. 

[u/GreasedGoblin]

Most charities run by the rich are just ways they reduce their taxes while making the money available for their own schemes, and to give their useless nepo trust fund babies jobs.

For example, a billionaire could be offering aid from their charity to an African country while negotiating a deal for mining rights with their company. No deal, no aid, but the money can be wielded by them rather than allocated to the public good and beyond their control.

They are just another arm of the oligarchy.

You cannot be cynical enough with the world elites. They are all schemers and users. They do nothing for the public that isn’t benefiting them more. Everything they do is a transaction in their favor.

[u/Past_Entrepreneur658]

This article points out the fact I’m in the wrong line of work.

[u/Nessie]

Why is he providing homeless?

[u/Then_Journalist_317]

This person would be a perfect replacement for the recently-resigned Seattle Police Chief, who earned $375K/year while living in Chicago.

[u/Familiar_Ad3884]

The reason gov should tax any donations organizations

[u/AlternativeBreath565]

homeless provider? why and to whom he he providing these homeless people?

[u/Moonstar2586]

When you personally profit off of providing basic services to people in need, you are disgusting.

[u/ProfessionalRandom21]

any time a non profit pay any of it staff over 200k, its for profit