Century Walk is a private organization that has provided Naperville with public art for the last 20 years. While the art has enhanced our public spaces, it is time to take a closer look at Century Walk’s finances, since they have requested $450,000 more of our taxpayer dollars over the next 3 years and Council appears poised to write them a blank check.
According to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, since 2013, Century Walk has paid its president, Brand Bobosky, $190,000 in executive compensation. Century Walk has also paid Brand Realty, Mr. Bobosky’s real estate brokerage company, $84,000 in rental fees in the same time period. Between 2014 and 2017 Century Walk reported $54,391 in advertising fees. This seems an unreasonable amount of money for a local nonprofit to spend on promoting public art. In fact, Charitynavigator.org indicates Century Walk has extraordinarily high expense ratios for a nonprofit. Century Walk scores a 10/100 (a failing grade) on Charity Navigator’s Encompass Rating platform. In contrast, entities such as Naperville Community Television Channel 17 score a 100.
The primary duty of Council is the City’s budget. They have a fiduciary responsibility to spend our tax dollars wisely. The readiness of some council members to grant more funding to an organization whose finances call for scrutiny demands a halt to this proposal. Please contact Council at [email protected] and express your opposition.
Lisa Rose
Naperville