Shortly after Dr. Ski arrived in July 2008, he terminated the contract of many managers (Vice Presidents, Directors and other exempt employees). While this is not unusual with a new president, what IS unusual are the high costs resulting from these terminations.
Because many of these managers had signed new contracts just before Dr. Ski arrived, legal fees and contract pay-offs wound up costing the college many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some were kept on the payroll but moved to new positions where they were paid to essentially stay away until the clock ran out.
One terminated employee alone cost over $90,000 in salary, benefits, TSA, PERS, vacation days, and COBRA payments. While we aren’t privy to all the details, one can extrapolate that these highly paid managers with their 6-digit salaries and benefit packages could quickly add up to a million dollars.
Responsibility for this waste of taxpayer money also rests at the door of MHCC’s Human Resources whose poor record-keeping and lax processes contributed to this debacle.
Bad Hires? Yes. Good riddance to bad baggage. Bad Fires? Yes.
Should the community know how the College spends their tax dollars? Absolutely!