Gallerias like this don't come cheap (Image: Ian Muttoo)
The CEOs of Canada’s top cultural institutions were likely choking on their morning croissants last week when they read reports that AGO director Matthew Teitelbaum became a millionaire in 2009, raking in a total of $1,070,262 in salary, taxable benefits and a $665,000 bonus for completing the Transformation AGO project. (The average salary of Canadian gallery directors of national institutions is rarely more than $300,000 a year.) Today the disclosure was made more shocking by the news that no other Canadian arts leader received such a whopping amount for completing a project during the same time period. The ROM’s William Thorsell, for example, earned a meagre $50,000 for completing Renaissance ROM, and he gave half the amount back to the project. When the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts was completed in 2006, Richard Bradshaw, who spearheaded the renovation, saw no completion dough. There were no bonuses for leaders in charge of the Royal Conservatory of Music, the National Ballet School or the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, and Piers Handling won’t be getting one for TIFF’s new digs, either. We know who’ll be picking up the cheque the next time these bigwigs get together.
This post is now complete—where’s our bonus?
• Big bonuses at AGO raise questions [Toronto Star]
• Million reasons why AGO Director had a great year [Globe and Mail]
I will not be renewing my AGO membership this year. Seems that the AGO has plenty of money to go around if it can afford over half a million in bonuses to one individual. It also explains why they are charging people $35 to see King Tut.
April 10, 2010 at 1:57 pm | by MarieI think the comparison speaks for itself. AGO = success. ROM = complete disaster.
Looks like performance bonuses really do work!
May 5, 2010 at 12:05 am | by NAVY