Amid years of budget shortfalls, and shortly before the Citi Performing Arts Center in Boston scaled back its summer production of Shakespeare, the organization’s leaders approved a bonus of more than $1.2-million for its president, reports The Boston Globe.

The paper says that the arts organization’s compensation of its president, Josiah Spaulding Jr., represented 6.5 percent of its $6.3-million budget in 2006. His bonus was part of a plan approved several years ago to retain key employees, the Globe reports.

Arts center officials discussed the organization’s finances in a long interview with the Globe early in the paper’s investigation into the group, which was triggered by criticism of the reduction of the Shakespeare program. But as the Globe honed in on details of the group’s operations, board chairman John William Poduska Sr. declined further comment.

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