So there are paid staffers that do stuff for the national org, on paper they don't have organizational authority but as with all politics its more complicated than that. There is also a DSA NGO called DSAFund that has a board that is paid. That is a little shadier because it doesn't answer to anyone, again, no formal decision making power (except over money which aint nothing) but the individual members are all like lifelong organizers -good people but politics is complicated. DSAFund doesn't control the orgs money but they have a lot of their own.

The national paid staffers generally report to the National Planning Committee (NPC) which is the highest day to day authority, that is elected by the national delegation, elected reps from all over who vote on the major issues facing DSA (including NPC elections) which meets every 2 years (the last convention was in August.) NPC members are not paid, but its a very demanding role. I believe there are 17 members of the NPC. In August, the "left wing" of DSA (basically a bunch of caucuses) managed to elect a majority of left-marxists to the NPC, from orgs that want to push DSA more leftward and away from the Democrats. This is a whole huge debate, but if you look up "dirty break" or "clean break" then you'll find a ton of arguments for, against, and every which way. In short I think this is a good time to join DSA if you have a good local group to join. Even if not there are a lot of national committees that do good work.

Finally there are caucuses which often have paid staff members, as members will pay dues to both DSA and their caucus (dues waivers are also easy to get so don't let money be a deterrent.) Caucuses can have less than a dozen to over a hundred (or more) members, there's really no rules and they have only in the last few years become really prevalent. The caucus that I'm in holds elections every year for its paid staff, which I don't think gets paid very much or its part time.

DSA members are actually pretty ideologically committed to democratic and transparent process, paid staffers get paid from dues collected from members, and there is enough internal tension from various factions that it would be difficult (especially now) for a small cadre to take money and control the org. It's not set up for that to be possible, and any whiff of it would have thousands of pissed off Marxists and anarchists with who would make it politically impossible for them. Last convention the delegates voted to form a Democracy Commission to try and make the org even more transparent, accountable and democratic. We are voting on the members this week and everyone who made it to this level has years of organizing experience in all different ways.

Sorry its long if you have questions I was a delegate in 2023 and I've been active for about 3 years. Not as long as many but I've seen enough to speak on most topics re: DSA