ALBANY --- Last year was a very good year for Nina Van Erk.

Compensation for the executive director of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association, a nonprofit organization with nine employees, grew by almost $1 million in 2010. But few people seem to know why. And those who should know aren't inclined to talk.

Van Erk's association runs state championships for high school sports outside New York City. While school districts paying her salary were cutting sports programs and struggling with a budget crisis, Van Erk completed her 10th year as the leader of the private nonprofit group based in Latham.

That triggered a deal that she had worked out with the association when she was hired, assuring her of a $740,000 retirement and deferred compensation payout, a $217,778 nontaxable benefit package, and a base salary of $144,677.

The extra retirement money had been agreed to, according to the president of the association, so that Van Erk would receive the value of pension growth that would have occurred if she had continued -- beginning 11 years ago -- in her previous job as an athletic director for a public school district. She had competed with others for the top job at the high school athletic association when it opened up in 2000, a position that paid more than her school district salary.

But Van Erk didn't want to sacrifice her public benefits, according to a past president. The compensation package, which one executive in benefit administration said is unnecessarily generous, was revealed in a public document -- a 2009 IRS Form 990 -- that would normally be available online or with the Attorney General's office. But it only could be obtained at this time from the association. A staffer provided it to a reporter when pressed on Friday.

The document emerges as state leaders are becoming increasingly troubled by sums paid to people running nonprofit organizations. Both Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who runs a charities bureau that monitors groups such as the athletic association, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is concerned about state spending with these organizations, have empaneled separate committees to examine governance and executive pay at nonprofits.

"It seems pretty wild," said Sen. Carl Marcellino, one of the members of Cuomo's panel, of Van Erk's deal. "I can't imagine anybody would have conceived of somebody getting paid that kind of money working for a group like that." He said some middle-school sports programs have been shut down in his district because of money concerns.

"I don't know how you can justify that," said Assemblyman Steven Englebright, also on Cuomo's committee. "It would appear that this is a good example of the type of excess the committee should be looking at." He said he met Van Erk this year when he was developing a bill to require wrestling mats to be cleaned after matches because of a concern about diseases left behind by competitors. Van Erk and athletic directors opposed the proposed law, he said, because it would add to expenses and would be time-consuming. He said if Van Erk's financial package is "wholesome," then the association should be willing to reveal the logic behind it.

The athletic association's president, Mark Ward, didn't want to talk about it at the association's conference last week in Lake Placid. Ward is one of 44 board members who approved the association's $3.9 million budget, which included Van Erk's compensation. All of them are athletic directors or school administrators with roots in physical education. Several contacted seemed to have a distant understanding at best of the deal when asked by a reporter.

"I know of the situation; I don't have my notes," said Bethlehem Principal Charles Abba. "The details are a bit fuzzy for me right now." He asked a reporter to get back to him after first contacting Ward. He could not be reached afterward.

The board members also voted to increase dues charged to all the schools that must belong to the association if they want their teams involved in interscholastic sports statewide outside New York City. Minutes of the association's meetings show that in December 2009 members agreed to increase dues by $30 per school district, to $780, and 3 cents per student, to 83 cents. The schools are charged the per-student sum based on the number of students enrolled in grades seven though 12 so that bigger districts pay more, said past president Ronald Black. The fees are scheduled to rise in the 2012 school year to $810 per district and 86 cents per student over 300, according to the minutes.

Questions posed to board members were referred to Ward, who, like Van Erk, would not grant an interview. Ward provided one paragraph in an email that said Van Erk and the association worked out an employment agreement that assured her the pension benefit she would have been entitled to if she had stayed in the New York State Teachers Retirement System. He referred other questions to a lawyer who did not return a call.

The deal appears to set up Van Erk in at least three retirement programs -- the normal financed by 25 percent of annual salary provided by the association to its employees, the extraordinary benefit promised Van Erk for leaving the public sector, and the pension she earned for her 23 years in the teachers retirement system from working in two upstate school districts. Her TRS pension is worth a maximum of $2,768 monthly, according to a system spokesman, which Van Erk became eligible to collect in June 2010.

Her package may be unprecedented. Van Erk's predecessor as executive director, Sandra Scott, said she received the same retirement package as other employees of the association. It improved over time, she said, to 25 percent of salary set aside in a retirement account, the same sum reported to the IRS in recent documents for current employees, including Van Erk. When she retired from the association after 25 years in 2000, Scott received a lump sum of the value of that retirement program. It was $140,000, she said, and was paid over four years. She said the board "deviated" when it hired Van Erk.

Although the state Department of Education does not regulate the association, one of its administrators, Patricia Kocialski, often attends meetings and is a liaison. She said Van Erk has been an excellent leader of the group. The private association does not receive funds from the state Education Department, although it has been contracted in recent years by SUNY Cortland to run coaching programs. The organization was organized originally to cover basketball games and expanded in 1923 to cover more sports, Kocialski said. It joined the National Federation of State High School Associations. Van Erk has served a stint as an unpaid president of the national group.

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Reach Odato at 454-5083 or jodato@timesunion.com.