Salary for Leader of Police Charity Causes Uproar

The Atlanta Police Union and some charity experts are questioning what they say is the unusually high salary of the Atlanta Police Foundation’s president, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Dave Wilkinson, a 48-year-old former Secret Service agent was hired for the job in 2005 and is paid $211,000 annually by the nonprofit group. The organization’s revenue last year was about $801,000, which has dropped from $1.45-million in 2006 and $1.6-million in 2005. Mr. Wilkinson’s salary accounted for 26 percent of the group’s 2007 revenue.

“We were shocked” to find out Mr. Wilkinson’s salary, Sgt. Scott Kreher, president of an Atlanta police union, told the newspaper. “The foundation is a fairly new project in Atlanta, so we feel like it is a little exorbitant.”

Gary Snyder, a nonprofit consultant from West Bloomfield, Mich., and board member for the nonprofit watchdog National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, said that when compared with the foundation’s revenues, Mr. Wilkinson’s salary is “certainly significant,” adding that “donors don’t want to contribute to salaries — they want to contribute to the fulfillment of the [nonprofit group’s] mission.”

Officials of the Atlanta Police Foundation say that Mr. Wilkinson’s salary is not out of line given his experience and expertise.