In County Government Rich Get Richer Secretly

Guilford County government put a freeze on merit pay raises for all Guilford County employees four years ago, and, in the 2012-2013 budget no money could be found to fund raises for the county's roughly 2,300 employees. However, in an off-budget move that took place entirely behind the scenes recently, a host of Guilford County department heads have just received significant raises.

The message from the county's decision makers to county employees in the budget adopted this year was the same message as in the last three years: Guilford County is sorry but money is just too tight to award merit raises to county employees. Before 2009, those raises were, year after year, awarded like clockwork to virtually all county employees.

So it might seem like magic that Guilford County has suddenly managed to find money to give some county directors raises – of up to $9,000 annually – in the middle of a fiscal year when the county hit citizens with a large tax hike and included no money in the budget for employee merit raises.

However, sources familiar with the mechanics of the raises say that no magic was used – just some fancy footwork along with creative ways of finding extra money in a county budget that supposedly had been cut to the bone before the Board of Commissioners adopted it in June.

In internal discussions, the pay increases are not being referred to as "raises," which the county has supposedly had on hold for years. Instead, the pay increases are classified as "parity salary adjustments." Webster's Dictionary defines a raise as "an increase in wages or salary."

According to a county department head who asked not to be identified (and who is not getting a raise), the Guilford County Human Resources Department has been conducting parity studies of salaries to determine the size of the salary increases for the county department heads who received the recent raises. The department head said that, in cases where the county conducted a study and found that Guilford County directors weren't receiving pay comparable to directors in similar positions in other local governments, "salary adjustments" were made. That is, raises were given – under the justification that all Guilford County department heads whose pay is out of line with those in other counties deserve to be compensated fairly.

There is no indication that department heads' salaries were cut when it was discovered that their salaries were higher than the salaries of those in similar positions in other local governments.

Those raises are reflected in the affected directors' most recent paychecks. However, there has been no public discussion or notification of the raises.

According to one Guilford County commissioner, the Board of Commissioners was presented with the raises for the department directors in a closed session at a recent commissioners meeting. County officials are legally allowed to meet behind closed doors to discuss certain personnel issues – such as performance of county department heads and other employees. However, the salaries and raises of directors and all other county employees are by law a matter of public record, and non-performance based raises cannot legally be discussed in closed session.

In the past – prior to the financial meltdown in fall 2008 – whenever the Board of Commissioners awarded raises to directors, the commissioners went into closed session, reviewed the performance of that director, had a private discussion on the matter, and then the board came out in open session and took a public vote to award the raise.

This time around, the commissioners never took a public vote to award the raises for the department heads, nor has the matter been discussed publicly in any way.

One commissioner told The Rhinoceros Times that the board was presented in closed session with a list of county directors affected and the amounts of the "salary adjustments." However, the commissioner said they weren't allowed to keep a copy of the list. The lists of the pay increases were collected from the commissioners by county staff at the end of the closed session presentation.

Thankfully for the county from a public relations standpoint, both Guilford County Manager Brenda Jones Fox and Assistant Manager Sharisse Fuller weren't on the list of directors receiving raises.

In addition to being the county's assistant manager, Fuller is the county's director of human resources – the department that conducted the parity studies that are being used to justify the raises.

Fox came under fire earlier this year for finagling a large retirement bonus for herself and other long-time county employees without making that move clear to the commissioners, who voted down the bonuses after they found out about them.

On Friday morning, Nov. 16, The Rhinoceros Times requested a list of the county department heads who have received raises.

The directors who got raises are as follows: Guilford County Finance Director Reid Baker's salary went from $128,600 to $135,000; Sheriff BJ Barnes went from $137,493 to $142,000; Tax Director Ben Chavis got an increase from $105,600 to $113,000 a year; Security Director Jeff Fowler's salary increased from $80,133 to $87,000; Elections Director George Gilbert went from $97,372 to $99,319; Budget Director Mike Halford went from $112,013 to $120,000; Facilities Director Fred Jones went from $99,961 to $109,000; Child Support/Court Services Director Renee Kenan went from $102,950 to $110,000; Juvenile Detention Director Doug Logan got a raise from $78,917 to $86,500; County Attorney Mark Payne went from $148,600 to $153,000; Emergency Services Director Alan Perdue went from $107,532 to $115,000; Internal Audit Director Martha Rogers went from $101,154 to $110,000; Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen got an increase from $107,438 to $109,586; Clerk to the Board Effie Varitimidis went from $77,850 to $81,500; and Social Services Director Robert Williams went from $125,778 to $140,000.

The raises come at a time when there have been a lot of strange last-minute actions by the out-going Guilford County government that's currently controlled by Fox and the Democratic majority on the board.

On Monday, Dec. 3, Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston is stepping down as a commissioner, and, as a result of the Nov. 6 election, the board will have a Republican majority. Fox is retiring on Feb. 1, which – along with the new Board of Commissioners – means big leadership changes are coming soon for county government.

In the final months of the reign of Guilford County by Fox and the Democrats, the county leaders on the way out – in concert with some who will still be around – have been busy bees, attempting to deal with many matters that seem to involve favors or funding for well connected people and causes.

For instance, Fox had a failed attempt to quickly push through a rezoning of the Guilford County Prison Farm so the land could be transformed into a corporate park, and, at the Thursday, Nov. 15 commissioners meeting, the board, in a nearly unprecedented move, approved $200,000 in funding for the High Point Area Arts Council to purchase a headquarters in High Point.

...continued on page 2

...continued from page 1

The High Point arts council was asking for a very large amount of money compared to what the county usually gives nonprofits, and that $200,000 was on top of $50,000 that the county gave the group in the budget adopted in June. The commissioners gave out the money with virtually no information on the project, in the middle of the budget year – a time when those types of requests are almost never made, much less granted.

With a Republican board taking over control of Guilford County at the beginning of December, now is the last time for the old guard to spend money – whether it be on pet projects, raises or anything else Fox and the Democratically controlled board favor.

At the same time, those who rely on county services but who don't have friends in high places – such as destitute drug addicts with no other safety net – have had funding taken away. Up until a few weeks ago, addicts with no other line of recourse were receiving outpatient drug treatment services from Guilford County. However, in late October, about the same time the raises were being put into effect, those addicts were told to go fend for themselves because county funding had dried up for outpatient drug treatment at the Guilford County Substance Abuse Treatment Center on West Wendover Avenue.

Fox, Alston and other top county officials say constantly that Guilford County is in a dire financial situation. However, anytime they or other connected county officials need funding for something – a top new county position for a friend, large retirement bonuses for themselves and other top officials, money for a well-connected nonprofit – Fox, Alston and the commissioners in charge always seem to be able to somehow pull the money out of thin air or find it in some hidden recess of the county's $587 million budget.

One of the last changes made by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners to the 2012-2013 budget before adopting it was to remove money proposed that would have funded 3 percent merit pay raises for all county employees this year. That change meant that, once again, county employees wouldn't be getting merit raises. No funds for merit pay increases were included in Guilford County budgets adopted in 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012.