Retired Head of Milton Hershey School criticizes millions paid to boardmembers of the charity

[JPZenger]

The Milton Hershey School was an orphanage that was founded by the creator of the Hershey Chocolate Company. He donated almost his entire fortune to the orphanage 30 years before he died. It is now a school that serves 2,000 kids whose parents are not able to properly care for them. The secretive and politically connected Trust that was set up to fund the School now controls $12 billion of assets. Here are two recent opinion pieces about the incredible greed of the boardmembers. The first one is by an Alumnus of the Year of the School and the second is by the School's recently retired President (who ran the School).

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2015/12/the_hershey_trust_board_is_loo.html

"Today, some of our senior Board members have individually taken as much as $4 million from the Hershey entities, according to federal tax filings....

We are not surprised to hear that the Milton Hershey Trust Board is suffering from acrimony and political infighting not seen in sometime.

With much of the focus on voting themselves increasingly obscene compensation, consolidating power and extending term limits, dysfunction is bound to occur."

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2015/12/its_long_past_time_for_the_her.html

"But for the school's first 80 years, the Hershey Trust Board was dedicated to serving this remarkable School through honorable and selfless service.

They took no compensation. They understood that the absolute power and unlimited authority of Trust Board membership demanded a "self restraint and a moral discipline" worthy of that sacred honor.

By stark contrast, the Hershey Trust Board today is taking millions of dollars of compensation annually from the Milton Hershey entities. It chooses to operate largely in secret and its most senior members are voting to keep themselves in power with lavish compensation well past the Board's own historic term limit of 10 years."

[JPZenger]

1. Any other children's home could have served hundreds of kids with this money

There are many children's home that provide residential facilities for children in need. Almost all of them have to be extremely frugal with their spending. They could have served hundreds of needy kids with the tens of millions that the Milton Hershey School Trust has wasted on board compensation and perks.

The School even built a multi-million dollar clubhouse for a luxury country club they bought, which was heavily used by some boardmembers. Then in response to a Philadelphia Inquirer expose, the Board claimed that they always intended to use the country club land to build new student homes. Then why did they build the clubhouse?

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20101008_Pa__attorney_general_probes_millions_in_land_deals_by_Hershey_School_s_trust.html


http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20100418_A_costly_experiment_ends.html

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20100725_High_cost_of_Hershey_School-related_boards.html