The Gov had to go out of state yesterday, straight into the heart of Texas, to pick up a $500,000 check from AT&T
for his favorite charity, Arnold’s All Stars. The payment comes about
six months after Arnold delivered big for AT&T with a pay-tv and
telecommunications deregulation law that was supposed to clear the way
for AT&T to deliver fiber-optics to Californians. Those lines have
not been laid and its pay-tv service has not become available, but
AT&T has been given the right to bypass 500 local franchising
authorities as it grows where it wants. It paid little more than $2,000
recently for a state pay-tv franchise.
Let’s hope the money AT&T forked over in the Lone Star state at
least goes to the kids and their after-school programs, not just the
Friends of Arnold who administer Arnold’s All Stars and its glitzy
promotions. A quick check of the latest tax returns for the Arnold’s
All Stars, also known as "After-School All Stars Los Angeles," with the
Attorney General’s Charitable Trust Division shows a nonprofit that
appears very top heavy given its $2.1 million budget. The executive
director’s salary at $225,000 is much higher than nonprofits of
comparable size. The national After-School All Stars, which shares an
address but not a tax return with After-School All Stars Los Angeles,
paid its President and CEO an even more imposing $472,917 — nearly 10%
of the national group’s $5.2 million budget that year.
Of course, AT&T wasn’t thinking about the kids when it put up the money.
