Scout leaders well paid

My Mother called yesterday and asked if I had read the Deseret Morning News. I hadn't and she said that I should read this article about scout leaders in Utah. Apparently the head of each council makes a very generous salary. In Utah the average salary is $37,000. The council heads made from $130,000-$200,000 putting them well above the average Utah salary. Of course there was lots of justification and rationalization about heads of other non-profit organizations and talk about how Scout salaries are high across the country.

My favorite justification was the 60-80 hours of work a week. While there are some people that truly do work that most just say that they do and they really don't. To put it in perspective to work 80 hours a week you have to work about 11.5 hours a day, 7 days a week, or 13.3 hours a day, 6 days a week. Some people do this week in and week out. A few more do this on occasion. I've had a couple of weeks pushing 80 hours and it wasn't any fun. My point is, that very few people that say they work 80 hours actually do. It almost is always more like 50-60 hours. Even with the long hours is the salary justified?

Personally, I say no. This points to one more thing showing the greed in our country. This salary comes from Friends of Scouting fundraising drives where many LDS wards are given quotas. I remember this when living in the South Salt Lake stake. We were in a poor area of SLC and we were suppose to raise an enormous sum for that area. This meant going to all homes in the neighborhood, member and non-member alike, getting donations from people who have never had anything to do with scouting all so that we could fund the enormous salaries of the Council head. Ridiculous!