9/11-site salary boost
$1K bonuses for memorial execs
After closing for six months during the pandemic and laying off or furloughing 60% of its staff, the cash-strapped 9/11 Memorial & Museum gave $1,000 bonuses to each of its 12 highest-paid execs.
The bonus for outgoing CEO Alice Greenwald brought her total compensation in 2020 to $564,500, the memorial’s latest IRS filing shows.
The bonuses were funded by an anonymous donor and “intended to recognize the exceptional dedication of a very hardworking staff,” said spokeswoman Lee Cochran.
Eleven other top employees who collected $187,000 to $347,000 in 2020 also got the $1,000 bonus.
Another 155 employees received unspecified bonuses “based on duration of employment,” Cochran said, adding, “Everyone got something.”
The salaries have angered an advocacy group, 9/11 Parents & Families of Firefighters and World Trade Center Victims, which wants the National Park Service to run the site.
“This is a cash cow for the executives running the museum. Their salaries are exorbitant,” said retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches, the group’s chair, whose firefighter son, Jimmy, was killed on 9/11.
“It was built to honor the victims and tell the story of 9/11. They’re making money off the blood of my son.”
Ticket and tour sales at the site plunged from $74.7 million in 2019 to $11.2 million in 2020 amid the shutdown. After reopening, it rose to $18.9 million in 2021, Cochran said.
Now the memorial and museum, which ended 2020 in the red, is lobbying for a bill to require the Department of Homeland Security to award it a grant of $5 million to $10 million.
Riches’ 9/11 family group is urging Congress to reject the bid.
“Yet again, the 9/11 Memorial Museum is asking federal taxpayers to prop up their bloated and unsustainable budget,” it said in a statement.
The memorial and museum’s expenses for 2020 came to $84.8 million, with $22.1 million going to employee salaries and benefits.
It ended the year with a $47 million deficit, but $29.2 million of that was depreciation of the building and equipment, officials said. The cash loss was $17.9 million.
The red ink would have been worse, but 139 people kicked in donations of $5,000 and up. The “emergency fundraising campaign” has collected about $45 million, board member Debra Burlingame said.
The site also got a $4.6 million loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program. It was forgiven last year.