Subscribe for Daily Updates!
Good day:
I am recently elected to our board.
In the course of our last meeting I discovered that the building's superintendent receives a substantial bonus each year – equivalent to 20+% of his highly competitive annual salary.
The rest of the building staff also receives bonus; however, I consider these reasonable amounts. By any standard, a 20% bonus is beyond generous, and considering his competitive salary, exorbitant.
The superintendent is not in the union. His perks include a fully paid, family medical plan; a completely free multi-bedroom apartment; multi-week paid vacations; etc.
The boards rationale for the bonus is that he does good work; however, I see him doing nothing extraordinary, only what I would construe as normal and usual duties.
They also operates in fear that the superintendent might quit his position if he doesn't get the bonus they have been awarding, seemingly without justification, for several years.
The board does not announce the bonus. Owners, unaware of the bonus they are already providing through their maintenance payments, give additional holiday gifts.
As a shareholder, I want to know how my maintenance payments are put to use.
In this case, I contend that the shareholders should be made aware of the superintendents bonus, both the amount and as a percentage of his salary.
I believe this should be done early enough for shareholders to decide if they wish to give additional holiday gifts.
What say you?
If you agree, how should the board announce the bonus to the shareholders?
Thank you for your interest and your responses.
D
sharehlders have a right to know how there money is spent.
in this coopo the managing agent gets a yearlyt bonus ,and isnt worth his pay.
when i was on the board and found out, as i got a memo stating the amount he expected, , the memo was from him.
i did everthing possible to have the bonus rejected, as i was a union empyoee myself, anf we would getr fired if we took a tip of a vaue more than a bottle of soda or piece of fruit.
managers were in no way on the tipping scale.
A super who exceeds his/hers union duties and saves he bldg money by doing small painting jobs and such, i am ok with tipping via the board.
management agents=no way
i think every shareholder should have access to the monthly and yearly finances of their coop, this would stop a lot of fraud.
And there is a lot of fraud!
Dear Escape: I agree with everything you say. You seem to be very knowledgeable on coop management, services, and basic shareholders' rights. You are also very valiant to fight for shareholders rights against the Board, the Managing Agent, and other agents of oppression and financial exploitation, such as super and other coop employees. We would like to put you in our mailing list. Please write to us, g5grosof@msn.com - CONCERNED CITIZENS for COOP REFORM - P. O. Box 568 - Bronx 10463
Please contact your City Council President - he is very aware of the ongoing corruption with coops in Yonkers.
Yonkers suggested contacting our City Council President. Who might that be? Our City Council Speaker is out, and a new one has not yet been chosen. Who are you referring to? I would like to know who you feel is aware of the ongoing corruption and seems to take an interest. Thanks in advance.
Please contact chuck Lesnick. He is very aware of the corruption of some coops in Yonkers. He might be term limited but this could be his last hurrah.
I think 20% is an excessive amount. You should look to make sure the 20% is not a payment to keep the super silence. Super know a lot about what is going on with the finance. Just make sure is not somethng bigger.
We are working to change laws to protect the shareholder's home. At this time we have no protection in housing neither in bankrutcy courts. Take a look at COOPABUSE.COM and feel free to email me at ROSA.NAZAR@GMAIL.COM
That is way too high of a bonus. Especially if he is not making a huge effort to earn it. And , by the way, if the Super quits that could be to your advantage as there are many many well -qualified potential Supers looking for such an apartment and they wont demand a bonus.
Who is your managing agency? and also do current board members get special treatment form this Super? If he quits - I think count yourself lucky.
Corruption is a plague in coops. The whole formation of coops was a fraud. The only way we win this fight is fighting together. We are organized and making politicians aware that this is a crime that is destroying us finantially and emotionally; we could end up homeless. Please take at look at COOPABUSE.COM and register to receive info. Also email me at ROSA.NAZAR@GMAIL.COM and I will keep you inform of our activities. We win if you fight the corruption together.
a 20% bonus seems ridiculous. we adore our super and he is getting a $1500 bonus.
as for those who think 20% is a good number because of the salary, also note that at the holidays, a good super will see $150-$200 per apartment in a holiday gift. that money is not taxable and in a building with 100 apartments means an extra $20,000 a year in earnings.
Introduce yourself to other members of Board Talk! Log in below or register here.
Board Talk members who registered prior to March 9th, 2016 will need to reset their password.
Hi Daniel,
I am the President of a 111 unit co-op in northern Manhattan. We are not a rich building by any means. A lot of our owners are school teachers.
We pay our Super $19.305 an hour (our union contract rate). Our co-op has a special contract with the Union whereby we pay an additional $0.50 per hour in exchange for a slight relaxation of the Union work rules. We limit his overtime to approximately 7.5% of his pay.
Included in his earnings, we also pay an annual bonus of 7-10 days of pay. He also gets housing and unused sick day payout.
Adding all of this together except the housing, I imagine he makes $52k gross wages including the annual bonus (taxes come out of that, of course). If his basement unit had a rent value of $1,500 a month; this may be an additional $18k of earnings after tax (our maintenance charge on a similar unit is about $875 a month in comparison).
He is in his late 40's or early 50’s and I cannot imagine raising a family on his pay.
Along with open Board meetings, The Board discusses the budget for the upcoming year each December including payroll. This amount also includes a bonus assumption of 10 days per employee. Shareholders are free to attend the annual budget meeting but in truth, few do. We do not announce the bonus amounts when ultimately decided. We encourage the owners to holiday tip the staff as they feel appropriate.
The result of all of this is that we have good employee relations and as the staff treats the owners well, we have fewer owner complaints. As we plan for the bonus when we set the maintenance, the funds are available to pay it out.
To put everything in context, the co-op also has a self amortizing mortgage and our maintenance load is approximately $1.10 per square foot. I am anticipating a small maintenance this year of approximately 3-4%. Complaints on the level of maintenance are very few (one or two owners complain a year).
My view is that owners elect board members to make decisions for them. If they want to know every detail, they would run for election. While transparency is fantastic, one risks losing people’s attention if too much detail is released.
If the building had a policy of not announcing the bonus, and now it does, one unintended consequence is that someone could think there is an effort to “hurt” the financial wellbeing of the staff – i.e. a vendetta. If you want to release this level of fiscal detail, I suggest that you not just do it on the “bonus” budget lines but on all budget lines. That way one does not appear heavy handed or spiteful.
Good luck!
Thank you for rating!
You have already rated this page, you can only rate it once!
Your rating has been changed, thanks for rating!
Board Talk members who registered prior to March 9th, 2016 will need to reset their password.