January 23, 2008

Senate Aide Who Spurred Key Nonprofit Tax Reforms Resigns

Washington — A top Senate aide responsible for much of the hard-nosed scrutiny of colleges and other nonprofit organizations in recent years has resigned.

Dean A. Zerbe, the senior counsel for Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, announced this morning that he would leave his post at the end of February to become national managing director of Alliantgroup, a Houston-based tax-consulting company.

Since 2001, Mr. Zerbe has been the engine driving the ambitious agenda on nonprofit issues pursued by Mr. Grassley, shaping many of the committee’s moves on tax policy related to universities.

Most recently, Mr. Zerbe has led the Iowa senator’s investigation of college endowments, pushing the biggest institutions to spend more of their assets every year.

He has also scrutinized the offshore hedge-fund investments many college endowments make, helped investigate how universities use tax-exempt bonds, and organized a hearing on rising tuition and higher-education tax incentives.

And he helped oversee the senator’s investigation of governance problems at American University, calling its Board of Trustees a “poster child for why review and reform are necessary” for governing boards of nonprofit organizations.

Mr. Grassley plans to replace his top investigator with someone who will continue the committee’s scrutiny of colleges and other nonprofit groups, said a lobbyist familiar with the senator’s plans.

But they will be big shoes to fill. “They’ll never have Dean’s energy,” said the lobbyist. “Once you were in his sights, you know, he was ruthless.” —Brad Wolverton

Comments

1. So they finally found a way to buy him off?

   — Firstsai    Jan 23, 07:43 PM    #

2. Don’t you just love how when one of these guys, so many of them, leaves the Govt., where they worked on policy initiatives for one thing or another, maybe a number of them, they go off to a job that have nothing whatsoever to do with initiatives they worked on. Their real calling is something other than what they purport to know about. here, the (supposed) education expert is off to lead a prominent tax consulting firm.

   — David    Jan 23, 08:34 PM    #

3. I beg to differ wtih David in comment 2. According to this post, everything that Mr. Zerbe is credited with influencing is related to tax policy in one way or the other. He is not described as an “education expert,” nor does his work touch on matters such as admissions or curriculum. It does have to do with the finances of universitites and how tax policy affects it, which appears to be a legitimate application of his expertise.

   — J. Ward    Jan 24, 01:16 PM    #

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