{"id":4499,"date":"2009-02-23T09:21:41","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T14:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=4499"},"modified":"2009-02-23T09:21:41","modified_gmt":"2009-02-23T14:21:41","slug":"recession-era_pelt_bagging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2009\/02\/recession-era_pelt_bagging.html","title":{"rendered":"Recession-Era Pelt Bagging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>But it&#8217;s not so much that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.silive.com\/news\/index.ssf\/2009\/02\/defending_the_perks_of_their_s.html\">the executive of the nonprofit gets such a generous car allowance<\/a> as it is the culture in which being driven around in a fancy car somehow encourages people to donate more money:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Three weeks after the Staten Island Zoo reported it had cut overtime for staffers, a move that could affect the quality of care for animals, and planned to hike admission prices by $1 to mitigate budget cuts, executive director John Caltabiano leased a brand new 2009 Lincoln MXZ sedan, paid for by the Staten Island Zoological Society. <\/p>\n<p>A 39-month lease on such a car goes for about $359 a month with $3,000 down. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is not a frivolous expenditure,&#8221; Caltabiano said during an interview in his West Brighton office, explaining that his choice of the Lincoln actually reflects a cost savings to the society; his first choice, a Cadillac CTS, would have cost $175 more a month. <\/p>\n<p>The cost of the car lease is covered as part of Caltabiano&#8217;s fixed annual expense account, which he is contractually entitled to along with his salary, which was $100,397 in 2007. The society also pays to insure the car, and covers gas and tolls. <\/p>\n<p>Zoo board president William Frew said the expense money is Caltabiano&#8217;s to spend as he sees fit. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s in his discretion,&#8221; Frew said. &#8220;If he chooses to lease a car, it&#8217;s up to him. That means he has less money to spend on other things.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Frew pointed out that Caltabiano&#8217;s job, like most executives, entails being on call around the clock, and requires entertaining wealthy potential donors and driving them to and from meetings and events, which is why a luxury car would be an asset in that line of work. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;More than one third of my time is used for fund-raising,&#8221; Caltabiano said. &#8220;The vehicle is one means by which I do that.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Maybe a recession wouldn&#8217;t be the worst thing to happen to us . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But it&#8217;s not so much that the executive of the nonprofit gets such a generous car allowance as it is the culture in which being driven around in a fancy car somehow encourages people to donate more money: Three weeks after the Staten Island Zoo reported it had cut overtime for staffers, a move that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-follow_the_money","category-staten_island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4500,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499\/revisions\/4500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}