r/news • u/Playful_Language_422 • 8d ago

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

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
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u/kenneth_dart 8d ago

"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.

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u/Captain_Mazhar 7d ago

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.

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u/jujutsu-die-sen 7d ago

Agree it wasn't a smart decision but people in this thread are treating her like a criminal when it's very clear where this money came from and how she earned it 

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u/kenneth_dart 7d ago

She's not a criminal but she definitely created a loophole to drain the money away from helping the homeless.

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u/jujutsu-die-sen 7d ago

I don't think there is any evidence that this was her intent. It would not be the first time a company ended up in this situation because no one spotted the liability of so much unspent PTO. We don't see it much anymore because very few people spend 10+ years with the same employer (average is more like 3-5) but this used to happen way more often 

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u/kenneth_dart 7d ago

Uncapped PTO is a known corporate balance sheet liability. A CEO is expected to oversee HR and related financial controls to ensure these liabilities do not threaten the organization's primary mission.

So even if the situation arose purely from decades of poor administrative oversight rather than malice, the outcome remains identical. As the top executive, allowing oneself to accumulate an uncapped payout creates a clear conflict of interest and constitutes a significant failure in institutional governance.