Reynold Levy, president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, earned pay and benefits of $1.5 million in 2009, up from $1.18 million a year earlier.

The pay was disclosed in the New York cultural complex’s 2009-2010 tax return. It includes $877,200 in salary, retirement and medical benefits and a one-time “re-signing contract incentive,” a spokesman, Betsy Vorce, said in an e-mail. Under Levy’s new contract, he will stay through the end of 2013, Vorce said.

The return said the pay also includes money for objectives achieved, including Lincoln Center’s roughly $1.2 billion redevelopment plan.

At Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, President Michael Kaiser earned $1.1 million in 2008. Its budget was two-thirds that of Lincoln Center. At the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, with about a quarter of Lincoln Center’s budget, President Stephen Rountree’s 2008 compensation was $765,485.

Previously chief of the International Rescue Committee, Levy, 66, has run Lincoln Center since 2002. He has written three books, including 2008’s “Yours for the Asking,” a guide to nonprofit fundraising and management.

Lincoln Center’s redevelopment is in its “final stages,” Vorce said. Renovations on the 16-acre Upper West Side campus included rebuilding Alice Tully Hall, creating a new visitors center and revamping 65th Street so the institution’s offerings are more inviting and accessible. Next month, the Film Society of Lincoln Center opens two new cinemas, and Lincoln Center Theater is scheduled to open a new house in 2012.