SCOUTING SALARIES: Utah Boy Scouts execs earn high pay

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Jan/Feb 2008 by Davidson, Lee

I then collected similar data for other key nonprofits serving youth (as identified by philanthropic research groups), including the Girl Scouts of America, Boys & Girls Clubs, 4-H Club, Big Brothers-Big Sisters of America and Camp Fire USA.

Searching hundreds of 990s and typing data into spreadsheets takes time. But I did it during lulls in other work, and it took a few weeks. (By the way, I'm happy to share the final spreadsheets with anyone who may want them to do similar stories about Scout councils in their area.)

Simple calculations and sorting with Microsoft Excel and Access showed the Boy Scouts of America pay their top executives far more than do other youth-serving groups. I found execs in Utah earned far more than average among Scout execs across the country. But officials here complained I was not comparing them with districts of similar size, so they provided size categories used by the BSA. I recalculated and found that Utah execs were actually paid less than average than people who led similarly sized councils, with hundreds of Scout execs across the country making high six-figure salaries.

But with other data, I showed that being a Scout exec is still one of the highest paid professions in Utah. The leaders of the three councils here, for example, made more than the typical Utah doctor or lawyer. The top exec made more than the chief justice of the United States, or the speaker of the House of Representatives.

You can read the original story online at www. deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695226688,00.html.

BY LEE DAVIDSON

THE (SALT LAKE CITY) DESERET MORNING NEWS

Lee Davidson is a special projects reporter for the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City, Utah.