AS MANY BENICIA RESIDENTS PLAN for the upcoming annual Relay for Life event, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, I’d like to pose a question: “Do the participants know where the money goes?”

In an article in last year’s Benicia Herald titled “First Street ribbons mean Relay approaches,” we learn that the money goes for “research and other services.” But the evidence suggests otherwise.

In an article in the December 2011 issue of CharityWatch’s Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report, we see that the head of the American Cancer Society since 1992, John Seffrin, made $1.3 million in total compensation and benefits in fiscal 2009. His payout in fiscal 2010 increased to $2.2 million. This puts him at No. 2 on CharityWatch’s list of Top 25 Compensation Packages.

According to ACS’s 2010 tax filing, Seffrin was paid $1.5 million for a supplemental SERP, which usually stands for “supplemental executive retirement plan.” This begs the question: Why is Seffrin receiving a retirement payout before he’s retired? Greg Donaldson, ACS’s VP of corporate communications, told CharityWatch that the $1.5 million was a retention benefit rather than a retirement benefit, approved by ACS’s Compensation Committee in 2001 to “preserve management stability” and for “succession planning.”

John Seffrin has dedicated much of his life to the cancer cause. He has been impacted by the disease personally — his grandmother and mother both died of cancer, and his wife of 43 years experienced breast cancer. It is not clear why he would require a $1.5 million payout, in addition to his generous $700,000 in other compensation and benefits, as motivation to continue leading the top cancer charity in the U.S.

There’s more. CharityWatch was also surprised to learn from ACS’s fiscal 2009 tax filing that upon retirement, three of Seffrin’s subordinates received pay and benefits packages of $1.9 million, $1.5 million and $1.2 million, respectively. A major chunk of these payouts was for accumulated pension and retirement benefits that were not disclosed by the Society until the fiscal year in which the executives retired.

If Seffrin’s underlings received such large, previously undisclosed payouts upon retirement, it is reasonable to assume that he will eventually get an even bigger payout. But when CharityWatch recently asked about Seffrin’s likely retirement benefits, Donaldson dissembled, saying, “We believe that any attempt to communicate any future payments to or the future value of any potential retirement benefits would be totally speculative and would therefore be of little benefit and indeed, potentially misleading.”

While the Society won’t reveal Seffrin’s anticipated retirement payout, it has planned to set aside $16.8 million in SERPs for him and its other most highly paid executives — in addition to the $589.2 million planned for future pensions and $57.7 million for post-retirement medical, dental and life insurance coverage for all ACS employees who qualify, according to the charity’s 2010 audit.

ACS should not keep donors in the dark about what portion of these millions of dollars set aside for future retirement benefits will directly benefit its already highly paid CEO.

But the more pertinent question for Benicians, particularly those residents who participate in the Relay for Life, is: Do you know where the money you raise is going? Is it to ensure that John Seffrin won’t be out on the street when he retires? Given the evidence, I’d say one thing we know for certain is that the money isn’t going to “cure cancer.”

I’m sure relay participants “feel good” about their participation. But frankly, I don’t “feel good” about giving hard-earned money to people who don’t need it — not in this economy, not ever. I prefer to give money to worthy recipients like the Burzynski Institute, where doctors are actually curing people who have cancer, especially children with brain tumors, and doing it without the medically expensive and physically damaging chemo and radiation therapy that the American Medical Association protects so ardently.

It may be that this all falls on deaf ears — to which I can only say, good luck everyone! Keep forking that money over to Mr. Seffrin. But you should know that it’s the same story for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, Komen Walk for the Cure and many other organizations’ fundraisers: They are designed to improve their bottom line — certainly not to cure any disease!

Benicia resident Rick Ernst is a former member of the Planning Commission and candidate for City Council.

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