Kamehameha Schools cuts salaries of top executives

Last year, as the economy hit bottom, the nonprofit Kamehameha Schools' CEO Dee Jay Mailer took an 11.7 percent pay cut, which cost her $72,808. Mailer’s total compensation was $548,885, including a base salary of $490,591, for the fiscal year ended June 30, compared to total compensation of $621,693 for the previous fiscal year, according to the nonprofit’s annual Internal Revenue Service Form 990.

In all, four of the five top wage-earners at Kamehameha Schools had pay cuts, the filing shows. In a 2009 survey of 325 large nonprofit organizations, nearly 30 percent of top executives took a pay cut—the median of which was 10 percent, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Nationally, chief executive officers of nonprofit organizations with assets of similar size to Kamehameha’s received a base salary of about $502,000 and $622,000 in total compensation, which includes benefits and reimbursements, according to the ERI Economic Research Institute in Washington, D.C. There are no other nonprofits of comparable size in Hawaii.

Kamehameha’s net assets plunged $1.7 billion to $5.5 billion at the end of the 2009 fiscal year from $7.2 billion in the beginning of the year. In general, nonprofit stock market holdings fell 25 to 30 percent in the year, ERI said.

The other top Kamehameha executives receiving cuts included: Kirk Belsby, vice president of endowment, whose total compensation dropped 29.5 percent to $497,916 last year from $705,892 the previous year; Christopher Pating, vice president of strategic planning, who earned $381,144, down 1.4 percent from $386,582 a year earlier; Elizabeth Hokada, director of financial assets, who received $346,676, 9.4 percent less than the $382,645 she received in fiscal 2008.

Kamehameha paid 20 employees and three of five trustees more than $100,000 last year: Trustee Nainoa Thompson received $114,000, 6 percent more than the prior year; trustee Douglas Ing received $103,500, 7.2 percent less; trustee Corbett Kalama earned $102,000, 1.4 percent less than the $103,500 in fiscal 2008.

Kamehameha unveiled this week a $118.5 million redevelopment plan for its main Kapalama campus. The trust announced last month that it would spend about $100 million to build a learning community in Makaha. Kamehameha Schools, created in 1884 by the will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop to educate the children of Hawaii, spent about $258 million, including $97 million for early learning and educational outreach programs last year. Its preschool and scholarship programs reached more than 44,000 children and families in 2009.