(Harrisburg) -- An advocacy group seeking changes at the Hershey Trust says trust board members are paid too much -- and it wants state and federal officials to investigate the matter. The Milton Hershey School is the trust's sole beneficiary. Protect the Hersheys' Children has sent a nine-page letter to the Internal Revenue Service, the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and two members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. Group President Ric Fouad says comments recently made by a trust board member in a newspaper article suggest the board is violating laws governing non-profits. "It shows that basically, these guys appear to be paying themselves something in the area of $1,900 per hour for what's purportedly charitable work," he says. Milton Hershey School President Anthony Colistra addressed the broader topic of board compensation this morning on WITF's Radio Smart Talk. He says the members have a high level of fiduciary responsibility when it comes to investment decisions and managing the trust. "I believe our people earn what they get and they work very hard. And look what they've done in terms of growing that corpus," he says. Fouad says the group is sending the letter because the state Attorney General has failed in his responsibility to oversee the trust. A spokesman for Attorney General Tom Corbett says the allegations and "borderline political attacks" raised in the group's letter are not new. He says the office ensures that the intent of each charitable trust is upheld, but it does not micromanage the organizations.
Read the letter from "Protect the Hershey's Children."
Hershey_Trust_Excessive_Compensation.pdf
Throughout September, the Milton Hershey School is the focus of WITF's Real Life | Real Issues series.
