Compensation Up At Biotech Council

Finneran says pay may reach $540,800

November 9, 2005

Former House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran may receive up to $540,800 in salary and bonus this year as president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, he said yesterday.

The Cambridge trade group, whose annual revenue is about $4 million, paid its previous president, Janice T. Bourque, $264,071 in 2003. It has a major stake in Beacon Hill business such as healthcare reforms now under consideration.

Until now Finneran and other council officials have declined to discuss his salary, except to say that it was more than the $90,000 he earned in the Legislature. But the council is scheduled to file on Nov. 15 an annual financial report to the Internal Revenue Service that must be made publicly available upon request.

Finneran, who stepped down in 2004 as speaker to become the biotechnology council's president, pleaded not guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice charges earlier this year in connection with statements he made as part of a legislative redistricting lawsuit while he was still speaker. A trial date has not been set.

Finneran said yesterday his base salary for 2005 is $416,000. He said he is also eligible to receive a performance bonus of 20 to 30 percent of his base pay, which could be as much as an additional $124,800.

Online databases only make public some filings made by nonprofit organizations and business groups. The Massachusetts Bar Association paid its former director, Abigail A. Shaine, a base salary of $175,000. Shaine left the position last year. In 2003, The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation paid its president, Michael J. Widmer, a salary of $285,000 and a total compensation package of $328,000.

Finneran's salary and bonus are overseen by the board of the council, which represents drug developers including Genzyme Corp. and Biogen Idec Inc., both in Cambridge, as well as some larger pharmaceutical companies such as Merck & Co., which recently opened a development facility in the Longwood area of Boston.

Council chairwoman Una Ryan, chief executive of Needham vaccine developer Avant Immunotherapeutics Inc., was traveling and could not be reached for comment, according to an Avant representative. Ryan and other board members have been staunchly supportive of Finneran even since the indictment was unsealed.

Michael O'Hara, a partner in consulting company Deloitte's life-sciences practice who is also treasurer of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, declined to discuss the specifics of Finneran's pay but said he has done outstanding work. ''It's no secret that the investment we've made in that position is more than what we've paid previously, but we wanted to make a statement," O'Hara said. ''If you go to other organizations and see what the CEOs are making, I don't think it's out of line."

The council has done well under his management, Finneran said. Membership has grown to about 450 from 400 when he took over, he said, and revenues this year are likely to increase because of services such as investment conferences, and a bulk-purchasing arrangement for members' laboratories. He said the group's board is ''enthusiastic about what they've seen and heard."

But a compensation consultant says those gains alone may not justify Finneran's pay.

''The salary level seems reasonably steep for a CEO operating within an organization similar in size and scope to this one, especially in light of today's outcry with regard to not-for-profit executive pay," said Frank Glassner, chief executive of Compensation Design Group, an executive-pay consulting firm in New York.

It is possible the organization is getting its money's worth because of the influence Finneran still wields on Beacon Hill, Glassner said, but in that case he should be hired as a lobbyist. Finneran said he is technically prohibited from lobbying his former colleagues until the end of the year.

Ross Kerber can be reached at kerber@globe.com.