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County Salaries High at the Top
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June 09, 2011 At a salary of $183,200 a year plus benefits Guilford County Manager Brenda Jones Fox may be the most overpaid government employee in Guilford County because she supervises just 650 employees.
Consider a comparison to Greensboro City Manager Rashad Young, who is paid $179,500 and has 3,080 employees to supervise, or even Guilford County School Superintendent Mo Green who is paid $250,000 a year and has 10,148 employees.
So Young receives about $58 per employee he supervises. Green receives about $25 per employee and Fox receives $282 per employee.
Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes is paid $137,493 and he supervises 562 employees, almost as many as Fox. Barnes is paid $245 per employee.
The Guilford County Budget at $580 million is higher than the Greensboro City budget at $436 million, but most of the people who you see on the county salary list don't report to Fox – not through any fault of her own but simply because that is the way that county government is set up in North Carolina.
For example, Fox has no say-so in how the school board spends the $175 million it gets. The county simply writes a couple of checks. The county manager has no control over how Barnes spends the Sheriff's Department's money. The sheriffs in North Carolina are elected officials and run their offices the way they see fit. The same can be said for Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen who is paid $107,438. He is elected by the voters of Guilford County and can pay no attention to Fox if he wants to.
The social services director is hired by and reports to the social services board. One member of that board is appointed by the governor, and the board runs the Department of Social Services, not the county manager. The same can be said for the Guilford Center, which is run by the mental health board and the health department, which is run by the public health board.
In Greensboro all the employees of the City of Greensboro now, with the notable exception of the city attorney, work for the city manager. In the schools the employees of Guilford County Schools report to the superintendent.
In Guilford County most of the people on the salary list don't work for the Guilford County manager. One person who does work for the county manager is Assistant County Manager and Human Resources Director Sharisse Fuller who is paid $163,120.
At the top of the list, as always in Guilford County salaries, is a psychiatrist – Psychiatric Services Director Michael Clark at $195,000. And sprinkled liberally at the top of the list are psychiatrists, dentists and physicians.
There is a bill in the legislature to cut the number of commissioners down to nine. If it passes maybe the new board will look at cutting some salaries.
Click here for a PDF list of all Guilford County salaries
Tags: Guilford County
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