The chief executives at four of the largest U.S.-financed nonprofit groups that deliver foreign assistance were paid more than $500,000 each in 2007, USA Today reports.

Iowa’s Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the subcommittee that oversees foreign aid, criticized the payments as excessive.

Sol Pelavin, head of the American Institutes for Research, was the biggest earner, with a $1.1-million salary, according to the newspaper’s study of tax filings by the 10 biggest recipients of foreign-aid grants. Mr. Pelavin said his pay “would be much higher” if he were leading a for-profit firm.