Yaroslav,

These public disclosures of both overall salary costs and top-earners' individual salaries are mandated by law. 

There is little point in having legislators mandate public disclosures if then nobody reads and discusses them.

This said, I am quite open to being told that I take a too jaundiced view of some things. I am also aware that many WMF staff located in San Francisco are not "rich" by any means, even though they may on paper be earning four or five times what someone doing the same job in Europe or Asia is earning. This has to do with the fact that WMF salaries fluctuate widely, those at the bottom earning far less than those at the top, and the cost of living in San Francisco is exorbitant. 

But I do ask myself, especially in view of the past two years of Covid and Zoom meetings, and so many people working from home, what point there is in having large numbers of WMF staffers based in San Francisco.

Andreas

On Tue, Feb 1, 2022 at 1:33 PM Yaroslav Blanter <ymbalt@gmail.com> wrote:
Am I the only one who thinks that discussing salaries (even if publicly disclosed) of named persons on this mailing list is highly inappropriate?

(I have no relation to WMF or any of these persons, for the record).

Best
Yaroslav

On Tue, Feb 1, 2022 at 1:45 PM Andreas Kolbe <jayen466@gmail.com> wrote:
Christophe,

"First year" applies in Jaime Villagomez' case (who took over as CFO on Feb. 1, 2016). Thank you for pointing that out. If his 2016 salary of $237,665 was only for eleven months (yielding an annual salary figure of 12/11 x 237,665 = 259,270), that does reduce the increase over three years to about $30,000. 

Toby Negrin and Lisa Seitz-Gruwell both joined before 2016, so no first-year exception applies in their cases.

You say it's important to look at the percentage increases. Let's do so.

In Jaime's case, with 2016–2019 base salaries of $259,270 (est.), $264,341, $275,495 and $289,356, I arrive at annual percentage increases of 2.0%, 4.2% and 5.0%.

In Lisa's case ($209,706, $216,556, $229,170, $252,117) I make the increases 3.3%, 5.8%, 10.0%.

In Toby's case ($192,018, $214,504, $228,023, $237,992) the increases were 11.7%, 6.3%, 4.4%.

Per the Form 990 info, WMF salary costs per head increased year-on-year by 13%, 7% and 6% (if you use Anne's method of calculating the average salary cost per head; with the one I first used only the first figure would change, to 15%, while the other two are unaffected).

As for market practice in the US, according to the US Average Wage Index[1], the average increases in those years were 3.45%, 3.62% and 3.75%. 

The above salary increases are well above these national averages. They are also, it must be said, financed by fundraising banners making people believe that Wikimedia is struggling to have enough money to keep Wikipedia up and running.

Andreas




On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 10:05 PM Christophe Henner <christophe.henner@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,

I'm sorry but I feel that discussion is loaded and meant to create a heated debate and not provide good analysis data points.

I was surprised by your claims, so I picked one example, not giving names to not single anyone out.

First, you assume the first year is systematically a full year, it never is. And yes even if you arrive mid january, it does take a dent in your yearly compensation (it represents 5%).
Second, you voluntarily speak in numbers and not ratio, which makes all data easy to twist. The one I checked had a 4% to 6% yearly salary increase which all in all is market practice in the US (we can argue about the discrepancies but hey).
Third, even if you spot a higher increase, going into personal details about the increase is meaningless (such increases can be related to pre negotiated increase, to planned catch up on cost of living, on role change, role expansion, new responsibilities, beyond expectations achievements, a load of valid HR reasons).

If only on very specific and verifiable data points like those I can find how you distort reality to fit your narrative I can only assume you are doing the same for the rest of the discussion.

Public eye provides a safeguard for problems and financial abuses, yes (and that's why 503c are public).

But twisting those data to spread gratuitous shade on people working for the Foundation (and even naming them) is wrong and honestly shows a lack of empathy (you don't care about how people can live when their integrity is attacked while they are committed).

So I am happy to jump in Spreadsheet and discuss compensations, but if we are to do it, let's at the very least do it with a benevolent approach and minding the people whose job is talked about.

Just a bit of empathy and care goes a long way :)


--
Christophe


On Mon, 31 Jan 2022 at 15:20, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466@gmail.com> wrote:
Correction:

The 2016 base salary figure for Lisa in my previous mail should have read $209,706, not $192,018.

Andreas

On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 1:55 PM Andreas Kolbe <jayen466@gmail.com> wrote:
Chris, 

All the numbers are taken from the official Form 990s filed. You can verify them for yourself here:


There is also a table of top-earners' base salaries on Meta, with data taken from the Form 990:


Have a look. They show various individuals' salaries increasing by remarkable amounts in recent years.

Jaime Villagomez' base salary for example increased by more than $50,000 in three years, from $237,665 in 2016 to $289,356 in 2019. 

Toby Negrin's base salary increased by more than $45,000 over the same time period (from $192,018 to $237,992).

Lisa Seitz-Gruwell's base salary increased by more than $40,000 over that period (from $192,018 to $252,117).

These are all base salaries, excluding "other compensation", which adds another $34K, $33K and $21K to the salary figures for these three individuals, respectively.

You can find the above figures on Page 7 of the following forms:


In 2008, only three people at the WMF earned more than $100,000: 


In 2019, it was (at least) 165.

Andreas

On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 7:44 AM Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:


On Mon, 31 Jan 2022, 00:45 Nathan, <nawrich@gmail.com> wrote:
I suspect there weren't that many FT employees of the WMF in 2008, if any? 

According to Andreas's table there were 72 total employees. How many were full time? Pass! 

But his numbers make little sense, so it's hard to draw conclusions from them.
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