School-job pay raise sought
Institute board favors president’s salary of up to $147,200
SPRINGDALE — Northwest Technical Institute officials hope more money will attract good candidates for the school’s top position.
The institute’s board of directors voted Tuesday to seek state approval to change the pay scale of the president’s position. The salary range is $86,887 to $125,986. The change that the board seeks would make the range $108,110 to $147,200.
Blake Robertson, the school’s president since 2014, announced in November his intention to retire at the end of June. His salary this year is $90,284.
“This is our top priority as a board, to find the next president of this institution,” said Derek Gibson, the board’s vice chairman. “We’re working hard to bring that person in that we believe can take this institution to a whole other level.”
The board is in the early stages of finding Robertson’s replacement. It has to establish the pay scale before it moves forward, Gibson said.
The increase in what the school pays its president is significant, said Mike Hamley, vice president of finance and operations.
Nick Fuller, deputy director at the Division of Higher Education, said his department will present the school’s request to the governor to get his support before taking it to legislators for their approval. Fuller said he believes the school’s current pay range for the president is low.
“I think raising the salary to attract a good president is the way to go,” Fuller said.
The board has discussed the possibility of hiring a search firm. That would require an additional appropriation from the state because the school likely won’t have enough to cover the expense in its budget for professional services, Hamley said. Such a request also would require legislative approval.
It’s unclear how much a search firm would cost.
The board made its decisions Tuesday after an executive session that lasted about 40 minutes. The purpose of the session was to discuss the matters related to the hiring of a president, which were voted on in public, Gibson said.
The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act allows public boards to hold executive, or private, sessions to consider employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining or resignation of any public officer or employee.
Executive sessions to consider things such as general salary matters, or to set policy and criteria for filling positions, are not permissible, according to the state’s Freedom of Information handbook, which cites attorney general opinions from 1993 and 2009.
The board’s executive session Tuesday was necessary because decisions made regarding the presidential search “will impact the individual in that position,” Gibson said.
John Tull, an attorney for the Arkansas Press Association and an expert on the state’s open meetings and records law, said it’s a “close call” as to whether a court would find that the board violated the law.
“It probably should have been held in open session,” Tull said. “Essentially, if they came back out and voted on raising the pay for the position, that seems to me a budgetary item that should have been held in open session.”