What Taxpayers’ 400th Anniversary Money Is Buying
Santa Fe City Councilor Matt Ortiz gave SFR a look at a binder showing the expenses and revenues of Santa Fe 400th Anniversary, Inc, the largely public-funded non-profit organization that’s staging events for the celebration. In SFR’s earlier reporting on the anniversary budget, 400th Executive Director Libby Dover declined to share such details. But now that the non-profit, aka “the committee,” is asking the city for another $750,000—see the New Mex story today—they didn’t have much choice but to open their books.
Some highlights:
Dover makes $10,000 a month!
The other five employees average $4,000 a month. Not bad considering the local average.
Salaries aside, it’s a pretty bare-bones operation.
The chair of the committee (Maurice Bonal) has his own office at $300 a month. For what? Meeting with all those corporate sponsors they don’t have?
Whoever manages the committee’s decent-looking but content-free website (the registered administrative and technical contact is Bonal) is pulling $2,100 a month. Hmm… (Their graphic designer has a pretty good gig, too.)
The committee expects to bring in under $200,000 in revenue from events.
One more after the cut.
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October 20th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
excellent reporting, SF REEPER! The same story by the New Mexican leaves out this important financial data, which you all obviously scooped. 10K a month for a failing org’s director?..she needs to take a pay cut. Some of us are living on unemployment checks…and they are 1/20th of her monthly pay.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
$2,100 a month to maintain a Website?? We have a large e-commerce site and we aren’t paying anything even remotely close to that number. They are getting ripped off, big-time.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Looks like a few folks are making bank off of the 400th–but what does Santa Fe really get?
October 20th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Not to mention $695/mo to Qwest… um, you’d think Halliburton is in charge of the 400th.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
you obviously haven’t seen the “400th Merchandise Tent” on Guadalupe… vinyl tents aint cheap, and seriously, the sign says “400th Merchandise Tent”…. awe some
October 20th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
meanwhile, the shelves at The Food Depot remain nearly empty and education budgets are potentially being hacked to pieces. Way to go Santa Fe. In an effort to celebrate the past, we’ve managed to throw the future under the rug. Scratch that: bus.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
From the Albuquerque Journal, Sept 20, 2008
..Bonal would not disclose how much Dover will be paid. He said he wants the non-profit’s budget to be public —most of its $350,000 in funding so far has come from city and state government — but that disclosure of her pay should come from Dover. She said her pay is “a good living but nothing spectacular.”
October 20th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I did a story on them for the New Mexican earlier this year, and if you ask me, the entire operation was blue smoke and mirrors from the get go. Ask them how much they paid their “PR firm” to set up on an appointment with me to see Libby Dover – the PR firm is located Right Next Door to their office downtown. Bollocks.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
This is obsene! Are we living in a world where no one has a conscience? People are living on the streets and depending on food pantries. Santa Fe really has become the city indifferent.
October 21st, 2009 at 2:00 pm
[...] Note: The Lt. Gov.’s “Quick Start to Energy Star Resources for School Districts” page has a bunch of broken links. Hope that site didn’t cost $15,000. [...]
October 28th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
[...] the struggling non-profit that’s organizing the city’s 400th anniversary celebration another $750,000. This should be [...]
October 31st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Hi, I’m the President of the Agua Fria Village Association and someone alerted me to the this posting about the 400th at the United Communities of Santa Fe County meeting.
Early on in the process, (2007-8?) all the local villages were told that they should participate in this celebration and share our history together. There would even be a meeting with the King of Spain and like the olympic ceremony we would march in under our Village’s banner in opening and closing ceremonies at the Community Center.
It sounded great and when I called back to find out the historian was fired, the ceremony planner was fired and a NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR was hired from OUT-OF-STATE.
Then it went downhill for there………
I think locals could have pulled it off……
November 4th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
[...] secret — a violation of the laws governing nonprofit corporations — but the Reporter ferreted out the numbers. The celebration’s executive director, Libby Dover, who was recruited from Seattle, was [...]