Drug-Treatment Center Leaders’ Compensation Raises Questions

Controversy has arisen around the salaries and additional compensation of executives in charge of the Tarzana Treatment Center, a nonprofit drug-treatment organization in Los Angeles that receives 85 percent of its money from government agencies, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper says Albert Senella, the center’s chief operating officer, earned $428,057 in 2007, and its chief executive, Scott Taylor, earned $330,732, for 32 hours of work a week. Both men collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred compensation in recent years.

Mr. Taylor is also a lawyer with a contract to provide the center with legal counsel, through which he earned $237,956 in 2007 in addition to his salary. Mr. Taylor, Mr. Senella, and two other board members also partly own six properties that the center leases for its use. In 2007 the four men collected rent of more than $2.27-million, according the newspaper.

Tarzana executives said their compensation is based on a report by an independent consultant who looks at the going rates in the market, but they declined to release the report.

“It’s pretty tough to compare us to anybody,” Mr. Taylor said, explaining that Tarzana offers a range of services beyond basic drug treatment. “I think we are so unique.”

Mr. Senella said the board of directors has “gone through great lengths to make sure that what we are doing is done openly and properly.”

But experts in nonprofit groups told the newspaper that the board itself is problematic, because several of its members get income from the organization.

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