King Center Payroll Up Sharply

The payroll at the financially strapped King Center has risen sharply in recent years, especially for upper management, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change is a private organization, but more than $2 million of its $4.9 million in income last year came from government grants.

Spending for “management-general salaries” increased from $285,301 in fiscal 1992 to $970,738 in 1994, the newspaper reported, citing the center’s financial statements. The payroll for all employees has nearly doubled since 1990, it said.

The King Center showed deficits of $2.1 million in that period.

King Center officials, who asked the newspaper to submit questions in writing, declined to provide answers.