How they feel your pain: In housing, and charity

Bob Dickey moved back East from Arizona last year, after he got promoted to president of the newspaper division, Gannett's biggest and most troubled; at the time, he ran the western region, which included The Arizona Republic in Phoenix. In moving, Dickey received a company benefit that's a staple across Corporate America: reimbursement for moving expenses. Indeed, GCI paid to move my stuff halfway across the country (twice!) -- costing at least $10,000.

In Dickey's case, however, the cost was much higher, the newly filed proxy report to stockholders shows.

Dickey (left) got paid a total $1.9 million in wages, bonus and other goodies last year -- including $411,888 in "other compensation,'' the summary compensation table says. Most of that was for his move to be near Corporate's headquarters in McLean, Va.

Gannett reimbursed Dickey $245,000 for the loss he took on the sale of his Arizona home. (The home's sale price isn't disclosed.) And it paid him an additional $116,357 "tax gross-up" to cover estimated income taxes on that reimbursement. The proxy says the payments are "provided under the Company’s relocation policy applicable to management employees generally." Bottom line: Corporate is helping Dickey escape the deflated real estate bubble, dragging down Gannett revenue, especially in Arizona.

THIS IS HOW THE 11th Floor defines shared sacrifice, when it comes to charity, and the Gannett Foundation: Dubow and 15 other current and former members of the select Gannett Management Committee will no longer be able to earmark $20,000 annually in foundation grants for their favorite charities (regardless of whether they're in a Gannett community or not).

This year, they'll only get $15,000 a piece, the proxy report says.

We know about this tiny benefit cutback because, near as I can tell, Gannett for the first time is formally disclosing this charity benefit to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; it appears as a footnote to the summary executive compensation table. I've never seen it mentioned in previous reports.

That lack of transparency has been one of the many beefs I've had with the Gannett Foundation's management. Dubow himself used the benefit to steer $40,000 to Western Carolina University, where it may have been deposited in the Craig A. and Denise W. Dubow Scholarship Fund -- a fund designed by Dubow and his wife to be off-limits to nearly every Gannett employee's child. (To this day, foundation Executive Director Tara Connell refuses to answer my questions about the $40,000's final disposition.)

Strange, though: Less than two months ago, GCI's board of directors rejected my contention that Dubow had violated Gannett's ethics policy, by failing to disclose the value of the benefit in the company's annual proxy reports. "The Gannett Foundation grants in question violated neither the Gannett Ethics Policy nor the law, including SEC disclosure rules,'' the company's chief ethics officer, Barbara Wall, told me in an e-mail last month.

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