Large bonuses at nonprofit get eyed

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Officers of the nonprofit testing company that administers the SAT, Advanced Placement exams and the Graduate Record Exams have received six-figure bonuses since its current president took over.

Fifteen Educational Testing Service officers received bonuses totaling $2 million in the fiscal year that ended in June 2001. Individual bonuses were as large as $366,000.

Kurt Landgraf, who became president of Princeton-based ETS in August 2000, was paid $800,000 for his first 10 months on the job. Only two college presidents in the country make more.

A human resources vice president received a one-time payment of $215,306 in addition to $25,700 in salary for five weeks of work at the close of the 2001 fiscal year.

The spending is being attacked by FairTest, an organization critical of standardized testing.

"This money comes directly out of the pockets of test-takers, their parents and taxpayers from states that contract with ETS, people who have no choice but to pay for these tests," Robert Schaeffer, Fairtest's public education director, told The New York Times.

Landgraf said the compensation is necessary to compete for top executives.

"Our compensation is based on the simple principle that we have to attract people who can help us grow, and while we can never pay what DuPont or General Electric does, because we don't have tools like stock options, we can use incentive pay and other cash payments."

ETS, which was founded in 1947 to administer college and graduate tests, had revenue of more than $700 million and an operating surplus of $34 million in the last fiscal year.

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On the Net:

Educational Testing Service: http://www.ets.org

FairTest: http://www.fairtest.org