Leaders question salary add-on
By Steve Herring
Published in News on June 20, 2016 11:58 AM
Wayne County commissioners last Tuesday questioned, but let stand, a $66,000 salary supplement for the Wayne Community College president.
The supplement is included in the county's 2016-17 budget that was the subject of a four-hour work session on Tuesday.
Board Chairman Joe Daughtery said he has served on the board for more than three years and had never heard that the country provides a $66,000 supplement.
The county budget shows totals for what the county funds for the college, but details, including the supplement, are provided in the detailed budget submitted by the college, County Manager George Wood said.
The $66,000 seems high, Daughtery said.
Commissioner Wayne Aycock raised the issue when he said he was asking questions because of the ongoing efforts to hire a new president following the retirement of Dr. Kay Albertson.
He said he did not know the process for setting the salary.
"I am questioning if we have $66,000 in for supplement for the president, we may not need but $35,000," Aycock said.
The college president's salary is set by the state, but individual colleges decide if they are going to give supplements, Wood said.
Wood told commissioners that the county provides the supplement for the college president's salary.
"The supplement for the president's position, who determines that figure?" Aycock said.
The college's board of trustees, Wood said,
"So we can or cannot fund that supplement?" Daughtery said.
"Yes you can," County Attorney Borden Parker said. "It is in your budget. You make the decision."
"I am kind of blown away by this," Daughtery said. "First of all the state sets the salary of the president of the community college. Do they not? Now they have established what that salary should be."
Wood said his interpretation is that the state sets what it is willing to pay.
"Once again, it is left up to you to make up the difference," Wood said. "Think about teachers' salaries. Why do counties have to give teachers supplements?"
"But a $66,000 supplement?" Daughtery said.
Wood said he was not trying to justify the amount.
"I am just saying that if you look at what the state is paying, that is not necessarily what the job is worth, but is what the state is willing to pay," Wood said,
Wood said his suggestion was to leave the supplement as is, complete the hiring process and see where it ends up. Also the budget will be completed before a new president is hired, Wood said.
That doesn't mean the county will have to spend it all, he said.
"It is really going to come down to who you are trying to recruit," he said. "A lot of it is going to be what do they make now because if you want somebody, and they are making whatever it is where they are, let's say they would use up $58,000 of that $66,000. Then you are probably going to need the rest of it to entice them to come.
"I don't know many people who are going to uproot their family and move and take a job if they don't get some sort of increase."
Wood agreed that if it was a vice president stepping up, then the county might not need as much for the supplement.
While commissioners did not change the supplement, the commissioners did move $145,000 for a storage building at the campus to a contingency fund until they could find out more about it.
A copy of the budget is available for public inspection in the clerk to the board's office on the fourth floor of the Wayne County Courthouse Annex and at the Wayne County Public Library at 1001 E. Ash St.
It is also posted online at the county's official website, www.waynegov.com.