Cosmic Justice Will Come When They Change His Salary Package To A “Suggested Donation”

Seriously, you shouldn’t worry about stiffing the Met now that you know how much they get paid:

Museum leadership has become a kind of star system, in which a small group of directors can pull in seven-figure bonuses from boards eager to hang onto the talent.

Last year, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philippe de Montebello, received a $3.25 million one-time payment as a reward for having stayed at the museum through his 70th birthday. His total compensation for the year was $4,557,342, making him the top earner in the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual survey of nonprofit executive compensation, beating out presidents of major hospitals and universities.

Other museum directors in Mr. de Montebello’s earning class include the director of the Museum of Modern Art, Glenn Lowry, who in addition to a compensation package that in 2004 was $1.28 million, between 1995 and 2003 received a total of $5.35 million from a trust set up by museum trustees. The former chairman, Robert Menschel, and president of MoMA, Marie-Josée Kravis, said in a letter to the New York Times that the trust helped to secure the recruitment of Mr. Lowry to the museum in 1995. In 2006, Mr. Lowry received $901,766 in compensation.