| June 07, 2012 The great news about the top of the Guilford County salary list is that it will be vastly different next year. The good news is that at least at the top of the list the salaries are the same as last year. Unlike the Greensboro salary list where the top dogs had huge raises, Guilford County has behaved like the economy is as bad as it is and hasn't handed out $28,000 a year increases.
Having said all that, Guilford County Manager Brenda Jones Fox is still by far the most overpaid government employee in Guilford County. Fox is paid $183,200 a year and she has about 650 employees working for her. With the new jail employees, Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes has 640 employees working for him and he is paid $137,493. To put that in even better perspective, Assistant County Manager Sharisse Fuller, whose job appears to be to follow Fox around wherever she goes, is paid $163,120. Why the assistant county manager has to attend every meeting that the county manager attends is a question that some smart Guilford County commissioner should pose, so it's not a question that is likely to be asked any time soon.
Fox has announced her retirement next February. On the way to making her announcement Fox slipped an agenda item past the Guilford County commissioners that raised her retirement bonus from $16,500 to $61,000. But the same deal had to be offered to all county employees who met the criteria, so 22 employees who have over 30 years in with the county have notified the county Human Resources Department that they plan to retire. None of the others will get a $61,000 bonus for retiring, but they will get four months salary, which is a pretty good deal. And it will be good for Guilford County in the long run if some of the long-term employees do retire.
For instance, Barbara Weaver is the chief information officer for Guilford County and is paid $146,366, but her department is so bad that other county departments, like the Sheriff's Department, that actually need to have their computers up and running, don't use Weaver's department. So if Weaver is such a good information officer that she is worth $146,366 a year, why don't the other county departments want to use her department's services?
The county is in desperate need of a new county manager and the revamping of the few departments that are under the auspices of the county manager's office.
One county employee who doesn't work for Fox and we hope doesn't retire anytime soon is Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen, who is paid $107,438 per year and is supposed to move in across the street from the World Headquarters of The Rhinoceros Times in the near future – as soon as the county is finished with completely renovating the BB&T building.
One thing Guilford County has been working on is naming buildings and rooms because everything is running so smoothly evidently county employees have a lot of time on their hands and this gives them a meeting to attend. We'd like to suggest that the county BB&T Building be named the Building Across the Street from The World Headquarters of The Rhinoceros Times.
Click here for a complete list of Guilford County salaries
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