THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2016
Gateway Greed
This week, our Muckraker was turning over rocks in Northern Kentucky, especially after last Saturday’s Republican Caucuses, when Bluegrass Bureau Chief Ken CamBoo showed him another award-winning expose by Jim McNair at the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting titled Amid Education Cuts, Retired Community College President Gets Hefty Financial Gift From Foundation.
It seems almost a year after the president of Northern Kentucky’s state community college retired amid running tensions with its board of directors, the college’s foundation will begin paying him a $348,000 incentive in July. Gateway has campuses in Boone County, Covington and Edgewood.
The 2014 “incentive plan,” obtained through a public records request to the Kentucky Community & Technical College System, was intended to reward G. Edward Hughes for his “efforts, abilities and accomplishments” during 14 years as president of Gateway Community & Technical College. His regular base salary was $177,463 a year, with an “allowance” of up to $22,000 more.
The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting reports Hughes’ supplemental pay from the nonprofit Gateway Foundation was never made public until now, and it is drawing criticism amid community college budget cuts, belt-tightening and declining enrollment.
“It’s stunning,” said Joe Meyer, secretary of the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet from 2009 to 2013. “It really calls their fundraising into question. Was this a fundraising for the college or was it fundraising for the personal enrichment of the fellow who was engaging in it?”
Meyer, the former state Education Cabinet secretary, questioned the appropriateness of a $348,000 golden parachute to Hughes when Gateway has struggled to deliver trained workers. Under Hughes, Gateway spent $26.8 million on a large new campus miles away from Northern Kentucky’s population core.
Meyer said the amount of the incentive is “distressing” because community colleges were struggling even before Gov. Matt Bevin, in his first budget, proposed a 9 percent annual cut in public higher education spending.
“The relationship between the school and the two largest employers here in Northern Kentucky — advanced manufacturing and health care — was poor,” said Meyer, a Covington resident. “The manufacturers are incredibly frustrated by the inability of the school to effectively partner with the manufacturers to help them get the number and quality of employees they needed to maintain their competitive advantage.”
Jeff Groob, president of the college’s board of directors, said he was unaware of the incentive payment. During the past two years, Groob and other directors have clashed openly with Hughes over his job performance, spending and real estate deals. Gateway also faces disqualification from federal financial aid programs if it can’t lower its federal student loan default rate to less than 30 percent.
Our Muckraker says there’s a lot more muck in this story, but he’s sure Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting’s James McNair could always use more. He can be reached at jmcnair@kycir.org and (502) 814.6543.
