A million reasons why AGO director had a great year in 2009
Payout of a one-time bonus helps triple what Matthew Teitelbaum otherwise would have earned.

From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published on Wednesday, Mar. 31, 2010 10:48PM EDT

Last updated on Thursday, Apr. 01, 2010 3:43AM EDT

Matthew Teitelbaum likely never thought he’d become a millionaire when he accepted the directorship of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto in September, 1998. But that is what he became last year, thanks to the payout of a one-time completion bonus that helped triple what he otherwise would have earned.

Giving a new definition to the term “culture shock,” documents released yesterday as part of the Ontario government’s Public Salary Disclosure Act show that Mr. Teitelbaum, 54 this year, earned just over $981,000 in salary and taxable benefits in 2009 – $1,070,262 if one includes the $89,250 he received last year for services to the AGO Foundation, the gallery’s fundraising arm.

The disclosure came just hours before 400 AGO staff, members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, voted 96.4 per cent in favour of a strike if they can’t get a contract to replace the one that ended last November. On Thursday, 37 full-time and part-time Local 535 members are set to lose their jobs in a layoff action announced last month by AGO management.

What provincial documents don’t show – but is revealed in a two-page letter AGO chairman Tony Gagliano sent Wednesday morning to AGO trustees – is that $664,490 of Mr. Teitelbaum’s package came courtesy of a completion bonus formula determined in 2001 as the gallery embarked on Transformation AGO, its $300-million renovation/expansion designed by superstar architect Frank Gehry. Without the bonus and foundation contribution, his compensation would have been just over $316,000. (This year, Mr. Teitelbaum’s compensation has returned to its “traditional level,” according to Mr. Gagliano.)

In an interview, Mr. Gagliano said the compensation bonus, paid from non-government donations to Transformation AGO (they totalled more than $230-million), had the “unanimous approval” of the board of trustees and “was fully earned.” He described Mr. Teitelbaum – who was not available for interviews – as a “world-class CEO” who was promised the bonus on the condition “he stayed throughout the whole [of Transformation AGO] to bring it in on time, on budget and fully funded – a very high bar for any director or CEO.” Mr. Gagliano sent his letter to trustees to remind them that while they had “unanimously supported” Mr. Teitelbaum’s award, it “may become a matter of public and media interest.”

The Gagliano letter also notes that six other senior AGO staff received completion bonuses totalling $250,000 in 2008 or 2009. Requests by The Globe and Mail to National Public Relations, which was handling the compensation disclosure file for the AGO on Wednesday, for staff names were not answered. But it was confirmed that the six were among roughly 25 AGO employees who last year earned the $100,000 or more required for reporting in the disclosure act.

While compensation, including bonuses, at Mr. Teitelbaum’s level is not uncommon at major U.S. cultural institutions, it is unusual in Canada. Last year, Glenn Lowry, director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and, from 1990 to 1995, director of the AGO, earned more than $1.3-million (U.S.) in salary and benefits. By contrast, Marc Mayer, director of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, reportedly earns between $167,000 and $196,000, with a “maximum performance award” of another 15 per cent. Total compensation for William Thorsell, outgoing director of the Royal Ontario Museum, also in Toronto, was close to $275,000 last year.

Like the ROM, the AGO has long and deep connections to the Ontario government. Unlike the ROM, it is not officially a Crown agency: Only 10 of its 27 voting trustees are provincial appointments, and traditionally less than half its operating budget has come from provincial coffers. Still, the province has been generous in recent years, even as the AGO laid off 23 permanent staff last year and 37 this year. It was the Ontario government that contributed $39-million to Transformation AGO and, in April, 2009, announced a $10-million increase in its annual operating allocation to the AGO, to a total of $21.5-million.