State to probe high salaries at nonprofits

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Wednesday that a task force will investigate salaries and other compensation at nonprofit agencies where he says about 2,000 workers are paid more than $100,000 a year.

The investigation comes as a separate task force created by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman meets to improve the efficiency and accountability of the hundreds of agencies.

Schneiderman said nonprofit agencies employ more than 17 percent of New York's workforce, including 500,000 people in New York City. They use state funding to carry out social services and other programs as a less-expensive alternative to direct state control.

Cuomo's task force will be led by state Inspector General Ellen Biben. Its creation comes a day after The New York Times reported high salaries at nonprofit organizations receiving Medicaid funding for the developmentally disabled. The newspaper reported that two brothers received nearly $1 million a year and billed their group for their children's college education.

"This task force will do a top-to-bottom review," Cuomo said. The group will also recommend other fiscal controls to "ensure taxpayer dollars are used to serve and support the people of this state, not pay for excessive compensation."

While members of Cuomo's task force include state agency commissioners, Schneiderman's task force includes nonprofit agency leaders from around the state.

Schneiderman's task force will also look at compensation, but it aims to loosen the state's costly bureaucracy-monitoring nonprofit agencies, many of them associated with religious groups.

"For too long, New York's regulatory framework has placed unnecessary burdens on nonprofits, which are simply untenable during these challenging financial times," Schneiderman said. "We can be tougher on policing fraud without imposing needless burdens and costs on this vital sector of New York's economy." Schneiderman's task force plans to provide recommendations by the end of the year.

Cuomo said a 2010 preliminary analysis by the state found that the average salary of nearly 2,000 employees was just under $169,000 a year.