Examining Staff and Board Member Salaries at CASIS
Keith’s note: CASIS (The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization chosen by NASA in 2011 to manage the portion of the International Space Station that has been designated as a U.S. National Laboratory. Non-profit organizations are established to do things in the public interest and not to generate a profit – or enrich their employees or advisors. Recently the IRS has started to look more deeply into compensation of non-profit executives and staff. CASIS likes to pay a lot of its employees hefty salaries – the top ten employees make much more than virtually everyone at NASA – including the NASA Administrator.
According to the Foundation Group: “There are legitimate, charitable organizations whose executives make up to, and sometimes more than, $250,000. For a very select few, a lot more. But let me put it like this if you have an employee whose compensation package exceeds $100,000, you better be prepared to defend it. Needless to say, Wall Street-style perks and bonuses are out of the question. And, depending on your organization’s budget, a $10,000 salary package could be considered unreasonable.”
According to a report “Nonprofit Organizations Salary and Benefits Report”, published in 2014 by the NonProfit Times “The average salary for a nonprofit chief executive officer/president last year was $118,678. The median salary was $100,000 while the maximum found was $666,266. The average tenure for a nonprofit CEO was almost 12 years and almost 40 percent of participating organizations paid their CEO some type of bonus.”
Let’s look at the reportable compensation and nontaxable benefits for the top employees at CASIS as listed on their 2013 Form 990, Part VII: Gregory Johnson, President and Executive Director: $148,333 + $5,375; Duane Ratliff, Chief Operating Officer: $225,000 + $31,689; Jorge Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer: $200,000 + $18,689; Charles Resnick, Chief Economist: $220,000 + $30,701; Warren Bates, Director of Portfolio Management: $200,008 + $19,370; James Royston, Interim Executive Director (Until 9-9-14): $228,012 + $11,312, Eddie Harris, Director of Development: $197,000 + $29,986; Melody Kuehner, Director of Human Resources, $160,000 + $27,277; Brian Harris, Director of Business Development, $153,000 + $26,756, and Kenneth Shields, Director of Operations and Education: $131,220 + $32,117. That’s 6 employees making over $200,000 a year and 4 others making over $170,000 a year. By comparison the NASA Administrator made $179,700 in 2014. 99.96% of CASIS funds come from NASA. Note: The fiscal year for CASIS ends on 30 September – so they have a while to file their next return with the IRS. Sources report that the 2014 Form 990 for CASIS will show a salary for Greg Johnson in the $300,000 range.
As the IRS looks at things, suitable compensation for non-profit employees is supposed to be gauged by the amount of work they do and comparable salaries at other non-profit organizations. As I noted in CASIS Has No Idea How To Raise Money – Only How To Spend It two weeks ago, CASIS has only one customer/donor: NASA. 99.9% of its funds.
Under NASA Cooperative agreement NNH11CD70A CASIS gets $15,000,000 a year. Under this agreement, as of September 2015, NASA has put $65,900,000 into CASIS. If the current $15 million per year payment continues for 2016-2020 an additional $60,000,000 will be put into CASIS for a total of $125,900,000.
This cooperative agreement between NASA and CASIS runs from 31 August 2011 to 30 September 2020. So CASIS has a 9 year more or less guaranteed income to rely upon. As such, CASIS does not really have to go out and find that income. As such, you have to wonder what all of these high-priced people with “financial” or “development” are doing when this money just falls out of the sky. So far only a trivial few thousand dollars outside of the NASA money have been raised for CASIS.
Note: CASIS Chief Economist Resnick recently left CASIS. CASIS employees were told that this was in connection with a NASA OIG investigation into travel accounting and that there would be additional questions about this issue.
Then there is the issue of paying CASIS board of directors members. According to the Center for Association Leadership: “It is not illegal for a nonprofit to compensate its board members with reasonable fees unless prohibited by the organization’s bylaws. 1 If compensation is authorized, it is advised that compensation amounts be set by independent directors or an independent compensation committee with input from outside advisors. It needs to be clear that compensation does not imply monetary profit. It is very important that board compensation be comparable to that of other nonprofit organizations and not deemed excessive by the IRS. 2 .. Section 501(c)(3) contains excess benefits rules, which bar board directors and officers from profiting from their positions within a nonprofit organization. Paying reasonable fees to board members for services may be legal in some circumstances, but paying more than the recognized market average can result in stiff penalties to a nonprofit organization.”
According to the 2013 Form 990 filed by CASIS board members Andrei Ruckenstein, France Cordova (now NSF Director), Bess Dawson-Hughes, Gordana Vunkjak-Novakovic, Leroy Hood, and Lewis Duncan are listed as having been paid $49,750. Carolyn Ticknor, Ioannis Miaoulis, Joseph Formichelli, James Abrahamson, and Philip Schein are listed as receiving no compensation.
Six of the CASIS board members were paid $49,750 in 2013. The 2013 return says that this compensation is for 6.00 hours of work per week. (France Cordova is listed as working 8 hours/week and James Abrahamson 15 hours/week – but he was not compensated). At the 6 hours/week work load that’s 312 hours per year or $159.45 an hour. If you use the 2,080 work hour/year standard that’s equivalent to what someone earning $332,000 per year would earn on an hourly basis. Sources tell me that the actual CASIS board work load is much less and that board members are only expected to put in 2 days per quarter at a meeting. So, let’s be generous and assume that they spend a day – each way – for travel (assuming that they travel to meetings) or 4 days per quarter. At 8 hours a day that is 32 hours per quarter or 128 hours a year. Doing the math based on the $49,750 per year rate is $388.67 an hour. $388.67 is what someone making $808,437 a year would make on an hourly basis. Again, I assumed 2 days for travel. If that is not part of the compensation then the $388.67/hour estimate doubles to $777.34/hour for 2 days/quarter. Nice gig if you can get it.
So … CASIS board members are paid somewhere between $159.45 and $388.67 an hour for their services. To put this in context, the median household income in the United States in 2014 was $51,939 – very close to the $49,750 that CASIS board members are paid for their few days of work every year. Again 99.9% of CASIS income comes from the Federal government which is funded by taxes paid by these households.
Non-profits that engage in a lot of fundraising (or claim to as CASIS does) often look to their board members as rainmakers. As I noted in my previous post in 2013 total revenue for CASIS Was $15,285,388. They received $15,273,635 from NASA; $9,193 from other sources, $2,525 from investments – and $35 from memberships (sounds like they only had one member). 99.9% of their income was from NASA. So these board members seem to not be doing much in the fundraising department – despite the high hourly rate that the majority of the board members are paid.
All non-profit organizations are supposed to make the mechanisms whereby they are governed and details of their finances public. If you look at Form 990 Part VI Section C Disclosure #18, it says “Section 6104 requires an organization to make its Form 1023 (or 1024 if applicable), 900, and 990-T (501(c)(3)s only) available for public inspection. Indication how you made these available.” The boxes “own website” and “upon request” were checked. Form 990 Part VI Section C Disclosure #19 says “Describe in Schedule O whether (and if so, how) the organization made its governing documents, conflict of interest policy, and financial statements available to the public during the tax year”. If you go to Schedule O on the 2013 Form 900 sent to the IRS CASIS says “The organization makes its governing documents and financial statements available to the public on its website and upon request.”
I have done a thorough search of the CASIS website and looked around via Google. Their conflict of interest policy, dated 14 March 2012 is posted here. But the only place I can find CASIS 990 returns is on websites such as The Foundation Center. CASIS does mention some financial information in its annual report but this is selective and incomplete and is certainly not the same as posting their 990 forms online – which they have told the IRS that they do. Other than the conflict if interest policy, I cannot find CASIS governing documents anywhere on its website or via Google.
– CASIS Has No Idea How To Raise Money – Only How To Spend It, earlier post
– Earlier CASIS postings
“Non-profits that engage in a lot of fundraising (or claim to as CASIS does) often look to their board members as rainmakers.”
So true. In most other nonprofits, “Give, get, or get out” usually applies to Board members – most who usually donate generously to be on the Board in the first place.
Also, there are a lot of Chiefs and Directors. Do they supervise large staffs? If so, the lack of results needs explaining. If not, the titles and inflated salaries do.
Yeah, these non profits are real cash cows for the slugs at the top. The median household income in the US is about $55,000. I say give ’em twice that, tops, take away their cushy slush funds, and make them account for all their business expenditures.
I had a similar reaction to @Rich, wondering about all of those Big Dogs. How many folks work for this organization, anyway?
I guess having an economist on staff is a head-scratcher, too.
But Keith I wonder if there is something to be learned by looking at governing modalities for other national labs. It’s true that CASIS is a different animal from, say, running Sandia– or is it?
There really is no comparison to government labs. I can’t tell much from their web page, but it’s pretty clear they don’t have much direct funding (numbers between a few to a dozen million are mentioned.) They don’t seem to have any scientists on staff and directly involved in research. In contrast, institutions like Los Alamos or Sandia have a much larger budget and almost all of their research is done in house by scientists and engineers they employ directly. CASIS looks more like a shell organization to oversee and manage research, rather than to actually do or fund it.
Indeed. This begs the question as to why it is even needed. The answer: Congress said so. I do agree that an external entity *could* do things faster than NASA its just that CASIS ain’t the way to do it.
Well, I’ve been accused of being cynical and paranoid. I’ll note that, in the past, organizations have been ordered to try a new approach, because it had worked well in a different context. If those organizations didn’t like the idea, there is a tendency to follow orders in a deliberately poor manner. Then they can point to the botched job and say, “I told you we shouldn’t do it that way.” I’m not claiming this applies to NASA and the way CASIS was set up. I’m just saying the progress and status of CASIS make me wonder.
The way that Congress ordered the creation of CASIS and how NASA interacts with it is problematical. The people working in the trenches at CASIS know their stuff but they are hampered by a cadre of over paid management who do not know what they are doing.
It’s my impression that the motivation for moving the activity out of the NASA/contractor community was in order to attract private capital to a NASA facility. As an example fo this, Space Florida has been pretty successful in attracting commercial launch activities to KSC by negotiating property leasing and incentives that NASA is legally precluded from offering.
The primary problem with this strategy in the payload arena was the assumption that there really is private capital out there to pay for ISS payloads. In reality almost all ISS payloads are intended for basic science and although some are quite useful scientifically, there has never been the quick and sure returns needed to interest commercial customers. Consequently researchers are dependent on CASIS and CASIS is dependent on NASA.
There are plenty of commercial firms that do basic research. I suspect there are plenty of commercial firms that would pay a reasonable cost to be able to do basic research on the ISS. Mr. Woodard you also said that commercial firms want “sure” returns. ISS is up there. Short of a catastrophe, its not coming down anytime soon. Given reasonable expectations for launch and perhaps return, “sure” should not be a big issue if the resources are properly managed. You also said they want “quick” returns. “Quick” is typically one or two business years, or in the case of academic institutions, 3 years, the length of a graduate program. “Quick” has been a problem for ISS. The Cubesats, which are small, self contained, and require little crew interaction, can be done in a year to 18 months. Most new payloads of any size or complexity seem to be on a 3 to 5 year plan, which is too long. The standards for payload design also seem not to be well established and not described anywhere. Recent publications of NASA/ISS Program, say “contact us so we can begin a discussion”. Most commercial users would rather see a definitive set of interfaces, process, and schedules. That’s not what the NASA books describe. They describe the excellent science already being done on ISS; some have no ISS examples; all they refer to are Shuttle or other programs. Most scientists can find out about the excellence and success of the past science in a literature search or in the refereed journals. For proprietary research, firms don’t want anyone describing what they are doing, particularly not the government. So it appears NASA does not know how to interest industry. If CASIS has no one in its upper echelons with any knowledge of payload integration, then who is leading and who is following? Is anyone leading?
I agree faster turnaround is needed. I think Nanoracks has done a good job in accelerating the development and flying of internal microgravity payloads from years to just a few months. Once SpaceX is flying again we may see more of these. We particularly need to extend the rapid turnaround model to externally mounted Earth observation payloads where the potential data stream is much larger.
And it looks like that private capital never made it to CASIS.
It prompts the question. Begging the question is something else entirely.
They publish metrics: http://www.iss-casis.org/Da…
Ratio of CASIS Expenses to Grants Funded is puzzling. See Expenses: Funding
“By tabulating the ratio of internal expenses to total grants issued for research, CASIS can better manage the impact the organization makes by funding projects that go to the Station.”
It shows an increase from 19% to 32% to 38% over three years.
From the definition, I read that as more money spent internally and/or less funding to projects.
CASIS is spending about 20% of their budget on the top administrators. Sandia’s managers are probably paid more than the CASIS managers, but then Sandia has over 10,000 employees and had a budget of $2.78 billion for FY 14.
Exactly.
Great points, which makes a strong argument to bring CASIS functions in-house to NASA. NASA has employees well qualified to do the work, they have ample office space, and have long-standing business relations with the space science community.
I think NASA has a lot of the right kind of employees with the appropriate experience, but they are not working on making use of ISS. ISS Program management seems not to care whether they actually get qualified capable people, or not (which might explain why they let CASIS go). From what I’ve seen NASA has not done any better than CASIS in bringing in researchers and payloads to make use of ISS. NASA just updated in the last couple days their top ISS achievements and aside from some spin offs and internal NASA health research, there is almost nothing there. In fact the couple external science achievements are things brought in by JAXA and CSA. http://www.nasa.gov/mission…
Given the long gestation, staggering costs, and minimal results to date from the ISS, it needs younger blood, tolerance for risk, and a faster mindset to eke something out of the rest of its life. If it is to stay within NASA, the best option is Ames which is next to Silicon Valley. A far from perfect solution by any means but with the right leadership it has a chance to work there.
There is merit to the notion of using an external non-profit organization to enhance access to the ISS. But CASIS, as it has been mis-managed, is not the right non-profit organization.
Seems like a lot of money for people and their organization that has not earned anything since they’ve started. Why does NASA put up with it?
Perhaps I’m feeling cynical, but isn’t a whole lot of money for people and organizations who haven’t accomplished much of anything par for the course?
CASIS was supposed to be different but its not.
Some of the very first comments made here are not exactly factual.
Specfically:
“the top ten employees make much more than anyone at NASA – including the NASA Administrator.”
and
“That’s 6 employees making over $200,000 a year and 4 others making over $170,000 a year. No one at NASA makes this much money “
According to OPM, the maximum BASE salary for SES in agencies with a Certified SES Performance Appraisal System is $181,500. And these numbers are not the entire picture since they are the base salary.
https://www.opm.gov/policy-…
The NASA Administrator is part of the Executive Schedule which according to various sources, NASA is covered under Level II which has a rate of $181,500
Furthermore, this whole discussion doesn’t quite seem like analysis. Most organizations in this community don’t have governing documents available online. Other “findings” are stated without anything backing them up, such as “Non-profits that engage in a lot of fundraising (or claim to as CASIS does) often look to their board members as rainmakers.”
A true investigation needs to reference trends and also a baseline among similar organizations/relationships that are relevant. What is the value in presenting numbers and details (including personal “math” which is based on assumptions rather than defined criteria) for a single organization and making conclusions based on that?
I showed you the math. If you do not agree with it then you do not agree with it.
Corruption at its highest. These worthless POS should be dragged out of their offices and have their asses kicked!!!!!!!!
“In 2012 total revenue for CASIS Was $15,279,936.” That makes it a pretty small organization, no way should it be spending that amount of money on top management.
Gravy train’s written all over it.
As pointed out in Keith’s earlier post, it is all NASA $$. If CASIS has failed to bring in any customers after several years, its time for NASA to put the money elsewhere.
While the outrageous salaries being given for nonperformance are a waste of NASAs limited funds, the real waste is the opportunity cost of a $150 billion asset, ISS, going essentially unused for its intended purpose year after year. Amortized over its lifespan, the value lost is 100s of million of dollars every year.
Strictly speaking, ISS isn’t being used for its intended purpose because it never had an intended purpose. At the start, simply building a space station was the goal. Back when it was called Freedom, they actually did a study to decide what it should be for _after_ they had decided to build it. It isn’t exactly a shock that NASA has trouble figuring out what to do with ISS now that they’ve built it.
I disagree.
Reagan stated the reasons for building it. There were extensive studies of the kinds of payloads and operations ISS was supposed to support.
There were payload facilities built for considerable sums. There were lots of payloads and prototypes built, tested and flown on Shuttle, Spacelab, Spacehab, and Mir. There were processes in place.
Then the ISS management that came in in the mid-90s thought they were going to do things differently.
One of the problems of a multi-generational program where the people who finish don’t remember why it was started.
Does Casis even bother to comment, defend, about this? Anything at all to justify the above normal pay for below average performance?
Who sits on the compensation board that determines salary rates? Who greased the wheel?
They have never said anything to me. As best I can tell they have said nothing to NASA, but I do know that a lot of people at NASA wish CASIS would just go away – so little to show for all the money spent.
CASIS does provide a list of the currently funded projects and provides annual reports. A few examples from 2014: (paraphased)
– examine how muscles stand up to radiation
– test a drug in mice for bone loss prevention
– ultasonic device measures intracranial pressure
– examine reduced fluid movement in ug in sockets
– analyze cancer cells in ug, matastasize to bone
– Test a return vehicle for priority return small payload
– Test a capure system for asteroids and orbital debris
– Develop a nonchannel drug implant
– In-orbit assembly of nanosatellites- reduce costs
– technology to measure max tropical wind speeds
– develop microfluids platform for general bio research
– use nanoparticles to culture cells on ISS
– flame retardant textiles designed for ug
– virus traps to understand how to lure and destroy
– Isolate specific cells for cell sorting enabled by ug
At the same time, there are doubts from the OIG about Crew health countermeasures for a journey Mars.
Anyway you could compare the results of these work/per unit dollar vs the NASA program?
http://nasawatch.com/archiv…
These salaries alone could fund Opportunity and LRO. What a waste.
http://www.dodig.mil/audit/…
Department of Defense – Office of Inspector General — Audit
Compensation to Presidents, Senior Executives, and Technical Staff at Federally Funded Research and Development Centers — Report No. 95-182 (PDF) – Date: May 1, 1995
The overall objective of this congressionally directed audit was to evaluate the reasonableness of compensation paid by Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) to officers and professional staff.
o Available compensation surveys and a comparison of compensation practices among the FFRDCs show that: salaries of FFRDC presidents and senior executives were generally in line with salaries at for-profit private industry companies, but higher than salaries at nonprofit organizations and in the Government; salaries of technical staff at 5 FFRDCs were out of line with salaries at other research and development organizations; retirement plan contributions for presidents and senior executives at 2 FFRDCs were out of line with contributions at other FFRDCs and the Government; and other elements of compensation varied among the FFRDCs.
o Because compensation surveys often were not suitable, Defense management did not have sufficient information to make management decisions on the reasonableness of FFRDC compensation and was generally unable to sustain reasonableness challenges to allowable elements of compensation.
Keith, Thank you! Appreciate your work here. If this information is as accurate as it seems… In a time of shrinking budgets, It very discouraging (and scary as a taxpayer) Exec’s would take advantage.Sadly there is way too much material in this sector for you to stay busy.
You are the 60 Minute of Space. Keep up the provocative work
NOTE that a GAO review of FFRDC compensation at NSF, DOE, and DOD FFRDCs indicated that most of these organizations spend over half and up to three quarters of their funding on compensation, and that some of the highest compensation received by executives at these FFRDCs ranged between $200,000 and $600,000. Furthermore, it highlighted the various cost caps and federal laws/guidance that govern all of this. In summation, this “gotcha” data about CASIS doesn’t appear to be out of line with any other FFRDC out there. – EDD
GAO Report Aug 2014 – FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH CENTERS. Agency Reviews of Employee Compensation and Center Performance. http://www.gao.gov/assets/6…
Many FFRDCs sponsored by DOE, DOD, and NSF spent over half of their total funding on compensation for fiscal years 2010 through 2012, and sponsoring agencies have processes to review compensation annually to ensure that FFRDC contractors were not reimbursed in excess of the cap amount set in federal law. These agencies also have processes to review compensation more generally for all contractor employees.
For fiscal years 2010 through 2012, 20 of 30 FFRDCs sponsored by DOE, DOD, and NSF spent over half of their annual funding on compensation, based on our analysis of agency and contractor data provided in response to our survey of FFRDC sponsors. According to these data, compensation costs ranged from 27 to 79 percent of annual funding at the FFRDCs sponsored by these agencies over this period. In total, these costs provided about 71,000 full-time equivalents (FTE) per year in fiscal years 2010 through 2012 at the 30 FFRDCs sponsored by these three agencies.28 In 2012, the average compensation cost for each FTE across the 30 FFRDCs was $135,694. In comparison, we previously reported that total government-wide compensation for federal employees for each FTE position averaged $116,828 in 2012.29 The average compensation cost for each FTE at a single FFRDC ranged from $88,000 to $177,000 per year. FFRDC sponsors also reported that the maximum salary received by executives at these FFRDCs ranged between
$200,000 and $600,000, as shown in figure 6.30 (App. II, table 6, provides more information on compensation costs as a percentage of total FFRDC funding, the compensation cost per FTE, and average FTEs across fiscal years 2010 through 2012 at the 30 FFRDCs we reviewed.)
Thank you Keith. Great work! I’ve been concerned about CASIS’s overall organization. How was CASIS even chosen by NASA for managing the research aspect of ISS? What and where is the history and publicly published criteria of how this organization was chosen by NASA?
That is strange.. Chief economist Resnick is being investigated among other matters – for financial fraud, yet Casis CFO Jorge Fernandez is still running their wasteful spending. Why is he not fired yet? Why not under the same investigation? He was either “looking the other way” or plain straight was involved in all this exorbitant waste…