Saturday, June 20, 2009

million dollar baby

from the milwaukee journal/sentinal's tom strini, july 22, 2004. at the end of an article announcing the skylight's hiring of bill theisen as artistic director is this gem:
Skylight annual meeting news: The company announced a $1 million anonymous gift to support the artistic director's position and its 13th consecutive operating surplus, an unaudited $3,315 above expenses of $2,942,947. The board elected officers: president, Larry Salustro; vice president, Suzanne Hefty; secretary, John Hein; treasurer, Sue Sachdeva.

in the skylight's defense, the economic downturn would have had a major effect on the interest earned from such an endowment. but in 2004, an anonymous donor thought having an artistic director at the skylight was important enought to part with a fairly hefty sum.

what happens to the interest from that endowment now? does it go to pay the managing director's salary? if so, is that in conflict with this anoymous donor's wishes?

10 comments:

  1. Thank you for digging this up. I remember that there had been such a gift and was wondering what had happened to it. We will probably never know..

    ReplyDelete
  2. And yet this anonymous donor has not stepped forward and demanded a recount. Just saying.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Curious:
    $1M would kick off 50,000 @ 5%, a normal endowment take. SOT's endowments dropped probably 30% since then, like many others.
    $700K would kick off $35K @ 5% or $21K @ 3%, both typical spinoffs these days.

    That means firing BT is going to cost SOT between $20K and $50K a year. You can't move that money to the new GM job, it's likely restricted to the AD position.

    So they're short on their $200K in salary cuts.

    Who's next on the chopping block to make up that shortfall? Or did JJ's firing cover that?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Curious:

    DA said the Board didn't understand the value of the company manager position, which was one of the reasons she was on the chopping block.

    But isn't this mostly the same board that hired ED's predecessor, CL?

    And wasn't CL the company manager before DA?

    Seems kinda strange they don't see the value in the position that gave them their last managing director.....

    ReplyDelete
  5. The anonymous donor may be taking action behind the scenes for all we know. Given that Konrad and John have expressed their intent to sever their very generous relationship, I would not be surprised that others are doing so. You want to get the Board's attention? Run down the list of people on the "Wall of Stars" there on the main staircase and see how many of them might follow Konrad and John's example.

    ReplyDelete
  6. OK someone thought the artistic director position was worth A MILLION DOLLARS but Dillner and the Board didn't think the job was worth even one-tenth of that?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Keep up the debate my friends. I'm sorry, I WILL spend the summer blogging and facebooking about Eric's evilness. I'll also comment on other people's blogs. If people think I've taken it too far and should cool down my rhetoric, I respond by saying I'll get out of the way of the positive vibe campaign that is being attempted. Good luck to us all. Eric Dillner must resign.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh, and I have a blog now for all the latest. Some great new info on there as of Sunday afternoon.

    http://delightamaze.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  9. As I understand things, if this was an "endowed" position, then that money could not be used for anything else. So the board's claim that Bill was let go for financial reasons would be completely spurious. N'est-ce pas?

    ReplyDelete

Inappropriate comments, including spam and advertising, will be removed.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.