TUCSON SYMPHONY SALARIES, PART 2

posted by James Reel

    Within an hour of my post linking to Drew McManus’ survey of orchestral executive director salaries, musicians from the Tucson Symphony picked up on it and started contacting me with their own story to tell, offering more information than Drew had to work with on his particular project. Before I move on to that, here’s a little chart I put together, using Drew’s figures, that compares the Tucson Symphony to its immediate neighbors in a similar budget category. (I use the word “Budget” as a shorthand for Drew’s “Total Ensemble Expenditures,” which is a more precise term.) I pulled the music-director salaries from Drew’s subsequent post on that subject.

ORCHESTRA	BUDGET	EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SALARY	MUSIC DIRECTOR SALARY
Knoxville Symphony	$3,702,059	$57,275	$55,000
Rhode Island Philharmonic	$3,975,141	$158,686	$116,500
Tucson Symphony	$4,112,115	$96,440	$101,285
Richmond Symphony	$4,160,173	$87,500	$120,804
New Mexico Symphony	$4,215,334	$76,200	$102,000

    The real blip on that chart is the Rhode Island Philharmonic, but I’ll let you make your own observations as we move along to the TSO musicians’ material. Please keep in mind that I’m just acting as an information conduit here, not as a reporter. I trust the source of these figures, but if any of my readers dispute them or have contrary interpretations, I’ll be happy to pass that along, too.
    A member of the orchestra sent me a great deal of information that’s a matter of public record, but the player wanted to remain nameless in order to duck any repercussions for speaking out. This particular player’s main point of contention is that the musicians’ income has been increasing at a much lower rate than that of music director George Hanson and especially executive director Susan Franano.
    By the way, if you look at more recent figures than Drew was using for his particular survey, you see that, for the latest available reporting period (which was actually for a fiscal year ending June 2005), when you include contributions to employee benefit plans and deferred compensation, Franano’s income is more like $107,422 and Hanson’s is $113,271.
    Now, on to what the musicians make. This is a tricky subject, because your income depends essentially on where you sit in the orchestra, and is tied in with how many services you are guaranteed in a season. (A service is a single rehearsal or concert.) If you’re in chairs 9 through 14 in the first violin section, in 2004-2005 you were guaranteed 90 services. If you were second trombone, you got 140 services. Also, keep in mind that the principal players in the TSO receive about 14 percent more per service than everybody else, and often get extra services through small-ensemble work, so a principal player can be getting paid for more than 200 services per season.
    Let’s take compensation for one of the string players as an example. From the 1999-2000 through the 2002-2003 seasons, the per-service rate for this player remained unchanged at $84.63. Meanwhile, in 2000 Franano joined the organization at a salary of $80,000 (nearly 11 percent higher than the parting salary of her predecessor, Clyde Kunz). In the succeeding years, counting additional contributions to benefit plans and deferred compensation, Franano’s income rose 6.5 percent in 2001, 7.6 percent in 2002, 5.1 percent in 2003 and 11.4 percent in 2004. Music director Hanson didn’t get a raise in 2001, but his compensation increased 6.25 percent in 2002, 3.6 percent in 2003 and 12 percent in 2004.
    Meanwhile, back in the rank and file, after a five-year salary freeze to help the orchestra get its budget more balanced, our string player received a 5 percent raise in the 2003-2004 season and a 2.25 percent raise the following year, but took a 5.5 percent cut in the 2005-2006 season. In 2006-2007 came a substantial 9.9 percent raise, but part of that was to make up for the cut the previous year. So right now this string player is making $94.36 per service.
    Remember that what this musician actually has in the bank at the end of the year also depends on the number of services. A player may be making more per service, but receiving fewer services. Or there could be a very big bump in annual income simply because the person is working a lot more.
    So, with all the variables, this particular string player may be ending up with $15,000 a year, while, say, the third trumpeter or somebody sitting in the back of the first violin section may not even reach the $10,000 level.
    My correspondent’s main point, though, is that on a per-service basis, TSO members like our string player are making only 11.5 percent more now than they were in 1999-2000. In contrast, Franano’s salary increased by more than 34 percent in a shorter period. Hanson enjoyed an only slightly lower increase than Franano, while actually spending less face time in front of the orchestra, according to my correspondent.
    I shared some of these figures with someone who has no affiliation with the Tucson Symphony and who remarked, “I was surprised at the spike in compensation in the past few years; it seems to me as though that is the same time the organization started to experience economic difficulties. I wonder what the board used to justify the increases in [executive director] compensation.”
    If anybody offers a justification or alternate analysis, I’ll be happy to pass it along.