Red Cross president quits
under well-deserved fire

President Marsha J. Evans has resigned as chief executive of the American Red Cross, for which allegedly charitable – and tax-exempt – leadership she was paid a salary of (are you sitting down?) $468,599 per year.

That is more than twice the salary of the president of the United States. It is at least eight times the salary of the commanding officer of the Salvation Army.

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And what has this Red Cross president done to deserve such a huge salary?

* Congressman Bernie Thompson, a Democrat of Mississippi: "As the case continues to be made that this congressionally chartered organization is dysfunctional, it would be foolhardy of Congress not to consider everything it can do to fix the problems that have been identified, including revising that charter."

* Congressman Jim McCrery, Republican of Louisiana, noted it had taken the Red Cross a week to supply $60,000 in new bedding donated by General Motors to a shelter in Natchitoches, Miss., where people displaced by the storm were sleeping on the floor: "The failure to get these resources to the shelter in a timely fashion represents an inexcusable breakdown in communication and coordination within the Red Cross," Mr. McCrery said.

The Democratic staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security recently released a report about the Red Cross titled "Trouble Exposed." This provides numerous examples of the organization's failures during a wide variety of emergencies, including times it has dispatched public-relations staff members to disasters to collect film for use in raising money before it sent relief workers to help.

"When the Red Cross national chapter claims that a disaster is too dangerous to send in volunteers, the arrival of public relations people – often days before disaster crews – raises suspicions," the report said. "Some believe that this presence allows the Red Cross to take credit for services that it does not render by perpetuating an image of immediate service that simply does not exist."

The New York Times reports:

The Red Cross has said that the report was based on old newspaper articles and did not reflect its current operations.

In a news release, the Red Cross said it intended to answer by Jan. 6 questions raised in a letter yesterday by Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Finance Committee.

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By Jan. 6?

Why on earth does it take the Red Cross nine days to answer questions raised by the chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee? The Times reports:

Congress was also exercised over the Red Cross response to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The Finance Committee asked similar questions then, and hearings were held at which Dr. Bernadine Healy, then the president and chief executive, was subjected to pointed questioning.

Very little happened, however, as Sen. Grassley acknowledged yesterday. The Red Cross made changes to the way it handled donors' money and forced out Dr. Healy, whose efforts to impose greater accountability and increase the power of the national organization over the chapters had long angered the chapter representatives who dominate the board.

Mr. Grassley's letter raised numerous questions about Ms. Evans' compensation, which was $468,599 in the year that ended June 2004, according to give.org, an affiliate of the Better Business Bureau that reports on charities, and asked for a fuller explanation for her resignation.

The same day Ms. Evans resigned, the oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on how charities responded to the Hurricane Katrina disaster that focused largely on the shortcomings of the Red Cross.

"It's hard to see how anyone's really in charge when you have 50 people serving on the board," Mr. Grassley said. "Congress and the Red Cross need to revisit whether the current law governing the board and its governance is adequate for a multibillion-dollar-a-year charity."

Let me ask: Would it be possible for Congress to ask the Salvation Army how it does such a magnificent job of helping people when its leadership is paid only a fraction of what is that Red Cross president's salary?

And why shouldn't Congress revoke the Red Cross charter – as well as it's tax-exempt status – unless it substantially reduces that salary and stops allowing such outrageous failures in what it is supposed to be doing?