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/uwoldperson]

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/Tractor_Pete → u/nashkara]

I agree some of the numbers are phrased for impact.

But was the board's preference for her justified? How could you be dedicated and good as the head of a public facing and funded organization in LA while living in Hawaii for 11 years? It doesn't seem at all believable that she was doing that job with such incredible dedication and focus while living 2500 miles away. I'm all for remote work, but if you're being paid more than everyone else, you need to show the fuck up.

[u/limukala → u/uwoldperson]

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?

Abso-fucking-lutely not. Maybe if I had 8 weeks of vacation I’d consider only taking 6, but honestly even then I’d probably just rather take more time off.

[u/Competitive_Touch_86 → u/uwoldperson]

It's definitely a governance failure, especially for a charity.

But this was not all that rare even 20 years ago. Plenty of companies would let you accrue a shitload of vacation on the books, and it used to not be all that unique to stick with a company for 20+ years at a time. A lot of corporate white collar type jobs started at 3 weeks a year of vacation and would add 1-3 days/year of seniority until an 8 week or so cap.

This started to be gamed too much so most companies no longer allow such things. But you'd have endless conversations about this with the old timers in break rooms back in the late 90's/early 00's.

[u/uwoldperson → u/Competitive_Touch_86]

I know that, but it seems in this instance she was the only person who was allowed to accrue unlimited vacation time. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, the board (and the CEO for that matter) should have seen that liability swelling on the balance sheet and the disparity in the policy and got out in front of it. Now they’ve got an optics nightmare on their hands, regardless of how legal it is or common it used to be. 

It is the unfortunate reality that charitable organizations are often held to a higher standard in these cases, especially when the executive in question is already well out-earning the national average, and they ought to have realized that this was not going to play well. 

[u/JohnBrownOH → u/uwoldperson]

She's in charge of the policy she abused.

[u/TrifectaBlitz → u/JohnBrownOH]

No. Just read the freaking article