Stovall shows pay from college group

Compensation surpasses $200,000

The incoming executive director of the Arkansas Association of Two Year Colleges, former House Speaker Bill Stovall, will receive an annual compensation package exceeding $200,000, including a salary of $156,000 a year, under a tentative agreement, Stovall said.

The association reported to the IRS a compensation package totaling $240,794 for Executive Director Ed Franklin in 2011.

Franklin has been the association’s executive director for the past 17 years and is to retire Jan. 2 after aiding Stovall, who starts work for the association Oct. 1, with the transition.

The association representing the state’s 22 two-year colleges announced Stovall’s hiring as its executive director on May 29. Chris Thomason, chairman of the presidents and chancellors at the colleges, initially declined to disclose Stovall’s salary, saying Stovall’s contract hasn’t been finalized and that the association is a private, nonprofit group.

Stovall was in the House from 2001-2007, the last two years as speaker. Since then, he has been a House staff member in several capacities, including director of constituency services, chief of staff and chief operating officer.

Thomason said this week that he subsequently decided that he’s comfortable with Stovall releasing information about his compensation package as the association’s executive director as long as Stovall was comfortable doing so.

That information ultimately would be available to thepublic under a report filed by the association with the Internal Revenue Service each year, Thomason said.

Stovall, whose annual salary is $133,034 as the House’s chief operating officer, said the association tentatively agreed to give him a $15,000-a-year housing allowance and $7,800-a-year vehicle allowance, in addition to his $156,000 salary. He said he’ll pay for his own health insurance.

The association also agreed to contribute 15 percent of his $156,000 salary - $23,400 - to a retirement account for him each year, Stovall said.

Thomason, chancellor of the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope who served in the state House from 2003-2007, said Stovall’s salary equals the average salary of the 22 chancellors and presidents of the two-year colleges.

“I thought that was the appropriate guiding post,” he said.

The association’s executive director and the presidents and chancellors of the twoyear colleges have similar roles from the standpoints of policy and mission, said Thomason.

Thomason said Franklin’s compensation package was “somewhat relevant” in determining Stovall’s compensation package, but Franklin has 17 years of senior-level experience with the association, he said. “That package is appreciably more than Mr. Stovall’s primarily based on just experience.”

Franklin said he receives $176,000 a year, plus $18,000 forhousing and an $11,800-a-year vehicle allowance from the association. The association also pays 15 percent of his annual salary - $26,400 - into a retirement account, he said. .

He said the association pays for part of his health-insurance coverage and he pays the rest.

Franklin said the association has tried to provide compensation packages to its staff that are similar to what the two-year colleges provide totheir officials.

The association doesn’t want to pay its staff much more or much less than similar officials at the two-year colleges because doing so wouldn’t be “good politics or economics,” he said.

The two-year colleges pay about $350,000 a year in dues to the association, according to Franklin.

Before Stovall’s hiring, retiring Northwest Arkansas Community College President Becky Paneitz told her colleagues in a letter dated May 27 that she had reservations about hiring Stovall, a former Democratic legislator from Quitman, with Republicans now in control of the Legislature.

A likely scenario is the state will have a Republican governor and a Republican-controlled Legislature after the 2014 elections and having “a strong Democrat” at the helm of their association “could have a devastating impact on any success the organization couldhave from a funding and policy perspective,” Paneitz wrote in her letter obtained through a public-records request by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She insisted that that she wasn’t “sharing this ‘food for thought’ ” solely to advocate for Northwest Arkansas Community Provost Steven Gates to be the association’s executive director.

Paneitz subsequently told Stovall in an e-mail dated June 5 that she wishes him success in his new job.

“Even though I had reservations concerning your hire, I know you will do your very best to represent all two-year colleges in the state of Arkansas,” she wrote in an e-mail obtained through another public-records request. “I apologize that this had to be sensationalized inthe press, although I should not have been surprised.”

Stovall replied in an e-mail dated June 5 to Paneitz, “Thank you! No worries at all on this end.”

He told Paneitz that he looks forward to working with Paneitz’s successor, Evelyn Jorgenson and helping Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville on its future pursuits.

During the past several years, Stovall earned an associate degree at Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock, where he’s also taught, before going on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Pulaski Technical College and Northwest Arkansas Community College are the state’s two largest community colleges.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 06/21/2013

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