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Greenway: No bonus for transparency

EDITORIAL | Editorial

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 28, 2012

The head of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy threw a shadow on the nonprofit agency this week when she tried to elude a Boston Herald request for her salary and those of her staffers. Executive director Nancy Brennan should have come clean right away and saved herself a lot of angst and embarrassment.

Five conservancy officials earn six-figure salaries, topped by Brennan’s $185,000. That may be on the high side for a nonprofit organization with a $4.7 million annual budget. And that’s before the possibility of Brennan earning an annual bonus up to half her base salary. But the point isn’t so much the size of her compensation but her clumsy efforts to hide the information from reporters. Brennan erroneously sent an e-mail to a reporter outlining how she hoped to duck the request.

The conservancy, which manages the downtown parklands above the submerged Central Artery, has drawn about 40 percent of its annual budget from the state Department of Transportation in recent years. The conservancy, therefore, needs to maintain the trust of public officials, private donors, and those who enjoy and support the 15 verdant acres in the heart of the city.

The conservancy already operates with considerable oversight from the state. But it may need even more if the director’s initial reaction is to head for the bunker after a simple request.