Sunday, Sep. 07, 2008

Midlands Tech board powerless on president's paycheck

Marshall “Sonny” White became president of Midlands Technical College two years ago with a promise from the chairman of the school’s board: Do well and your below-market salary will be raised.

White, by all accounts, has done well, exceeding expectations, according to Robert Dozier, chairman of the board when White was hired. But White’s $141,096 salary is frozen and cannot be raised by trustees.

A two-year-old change in the role of an obscure government commission means it, not the board of trustees, sets the salaries of the state’s technical college presidents.

Some in higher education fear the change will limit South Carolina’s ability to attract top-notch leaders to technical colleges.

Opponents of the change say that would be an especially troubling development as technical schools become an increasingly popular alternative for students priced out of major universities.

In a state where the median household income is less than $40,000, White’s salary might seem handsome.

But, as high as White’s salary is, it — along with the salaries of his peers at the state’s other 15 technical colleges — lags far behind what their peers earn in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, according to figures from the Chronicle of Higher Education and the S.C. Budget and Control Board.

“South Carolina just doesn’t compete well with, say, Florida, in paying community college presidents,” said Jeff Hockaday, a North Carolina-based recruiter of technical and community college presidents.

Technical and community college presidents in Florida have, on average, an annual compensation package of $346,361, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, a national magazine that tracks higher education trends.

The average presidential pay in Georgia is $193,081 a year. In North Carolina, it is $226,065.

S.C. technical college presidents earn an average of $138,258 a year, Budget and Control Board figures show.

That S.C. average is not likely to move higher because the Agency Head Salary Commission, a 24-year-old state panel, now sets the pay of technical college presidents. The commission took on that duty in June 2006, less than three months after White became Midlands Tech president.

HOLDING THE LINE ON SALARIES

Eight of the Salary Commission’s 11 members are publicly elected officials.

The agency sets the pay for each executive who runs a state agency, including publicly supported colleges. Salaries must be given final approval by the state’s Budget and Control Board.

State Sen. Wes Hayes, a York County Republican who is on the Salary Commission, supported the move to have it set salaries for technical college presidents.

“All of the other college presidents come under our commission, whereas the technical colleges did not,” Hayes explained. “(Taxpayers are) funding the salaries of the technical college presidents. The (technical college) boards don’t pay the salaries, and we were finding that the salaries were getting out of line. They really had no incentive to keep them in line.”

Gov. Mark Sanford thinks the Salary Commission — plus the Budget and Control Board, for that matter — is an unnecessary layer of bureaucratic fat.

His spokesman, Joel Sawyer, said Sanford wants to establish a single board that would oversee higher education. However, the governor wants final authority over salaries.

“If you have a governor setting salaries, you have one-stop shopping for accountability,” Sawyer said.

Now, Sanford has less influence in setting salaries than state Sen. Hugh Leatherman, the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and member of the Budget and Control Board.

Leatherman appoints four of the Salary Commission’s members. State Rep. Dan Cooper, the Anderson Republican who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also appoints four; Sanford appoints three.

Leatherman, frequently at odds with Sanford, is the commission’s chairman. He supported the move to have the commission set the salaries of technical college presidents.

“You have a system in South Carolina now where you have one guy who sets salaries for agency heads in South Carolina,” Sanford spokesman Sawyer said. “You have the appearance of a commission, but we all know what’s going on here.”

Many in higher education are hesitant to speak on the record about the Salary Commission’s pay-setting role, citing a desire not to antagonize Leatherman.

Efforts to reach Leatherman were unsuccessful.

PRESSURE TO RECRUIT, RETAIN

Dozier, who remains on the Midlands Tech board, said he understands the desire to make sure technical college board members are responsible with tax dollars.

Midlands Tech, for instance, gets 21 percent of its funding from the state government.

But Dozier said his concerns go beyond White’s stagnant salary. “Any board that understands its role is worried about two things: recruitment and retention” of a college president, he said.

Hayes said he shares those concerns.

“That’s always an issue,” Hayes said. “But it’s an issue with other college presidents, too.”

Barry Russell, president of the S.C. Technical College System, said he understands the concerns of the Salary Commission and of those who worry that comparatively low salaries could harm efforts to retain and recruit S.C. technical college presidents.

“The Agency Head Salary Commission has had oversight of the local technical college presidents for only two years, so we are still assessing the impact,” Russell said in a statement. “But we are all in agreement that the technical college system and the state of South Carolina must continue to attract, recruit and retain the best possible presidents for our system of world-class colleges.”

The Midlands Tech board twice has written to the Salary Commission in an effort to raise White’s salary.

Dozier said the commission has not responded to either appeal.

Meanwhile, Dozier fears, White could be lured away by a technical school in another state. (Efforts to reach White for comment were unsuccessful.)

Dozier said he worries, too, about board members’ losing authority over college presidents.

“We believe we have three jobs — hire the CEO to run the institution, set policy and monitor progress,” Dozier said. “We feel we should be able to reward or penalize the CEO based on performance. The way you hold people accountable is with their pay.”

Reach senior writer Wayne Washington at (803) 771-8385.