Bob Henkel, president and CEO of Ascension Healthcare, came in at No. 18 in the Wall Streets Journal list of The Million-Dollar Club of individuals employed by nonprofits that earned at least $1 million in 2014. Henkel, who has announced he plans to retire from Ascension as of June 30, earned total compensation of $7.5 million in 2014.

Overall, the nonprofit organizations analyzed by the newspaper provided seven-figure compensation to about 2,700 employees in 2014. About 75 percent of the nonprofits that provided million-dollar compensation packages worked in the health care industry.

Some lawmakers have been critical of the increasing amount of compensation paid to executives at charity organizations, which receive substantial tax break benefits.

Whos harmed by this is really who is supposed to benefit from the charities the orphan, the refugee, the stray dog, Dean Zerbe, a lawyer who was a senior advisor to Sen. Charles Grassley, told the Wall Street Journal.

Others say these large nonprofits have to pay well to attract talented executives.

While there are outlier cases where the salary is not warranted, there are also huge organizations like hospitals and colleges and universities that are billion-dollar enterprises, Elizabeth Boris, of the Urban Institute think tank, told the newspaper. If a business person were running a similar-sized entity, there wouldnt be eyebrows raised at all.

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Ascension's Tersigni, others cited in WSJ study on high pay at nonprofits - St. Louis Business Journal