SURF CITY — Councilman Jeremy Shugarts said on Wednesday that he believes the salaries of two full-time welcome center employees – “a few dollars short of $140,000” – is an improper misallocation of taxpayer funds.
“It’s the worst, grossest example of nepotism I’ve ever seen in my life,” Shugarts said, referring to a “Good Old Boy Network” that keeps them employed.
$140,000 for two employees
The figure includes FICA, retirement, 401k contribution, insurance, and training expenditures for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018. The Town of Surf City’s Statement of Revenue and Expenditures listed this total at $112,314; however, city manager Ashley Loftis said that because the city switched to a new finance software six months into the fiscal year, additional manual payrolls remain to be entered.
Shugarts said that another council member had told him that because the money in question is earmarked for the welcome center from the city’s occupancy tax, it is not “really coming out of the taxpayers’ pocket.”
“I said, ‘What do you mean? We have a fiduciary responsibility to our community,'” Shugarts recalled. “If we weren’t blowing it on (the welcome center), we could spend it on something else that was better.”
Loftis said that she believes the money for those two salaries is well spent because both employees oversee the city’s tourism website and manage the facility year-round, which includes renting the building out for private events.
Shugarts acknowledged that Loftis was a “forward-thinking and thorough” town manager, but said he is irritated by the amount of money she and the current city council members continue to spend on the welcome center.
According to annual audit reports provided by Loftis dating back to the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013, salaries plus employee benefits for the welcome center equaled $110,698 (2013), $120,704 (2014), $119,550 (2015), $126,852 (2016), and $134,640 (2017).
“When you bring this to the old council they say leave it alone,” Shugarts continued, referring to long-time council members who he predicted could lose their seats in the November 2019 elections –– a reflection of the city’s growth and changing demographics.
“But I say, you put a guy in there for $10 an hour, eight hours a day to hand out brochures and then he goes home,” Shugarts said. “And (the city) doesn’t pay benefits.”
The welcome center
The welcome center website reads: “In addition to providing hardcopy travel literature, the tourism office has created a strong presence in social media,” noting that in four short years its Facebook page has generated some 13,000 followers.
The website also mentions that a crossover to the beach was added in 2011 for the sole purpose of renting out the facility.
Shugarts has been petitioning the council to reorganize the welcome center: the two employees, both eligible to retire, could be replaced by an hourly worker during the summer months, he said, while part of the building could be used as a sub-station for city police, fire and EMS personnel to increase the safety presence on the beach.
“Answers I’ve received from our council are: don’t worry about it, leave it alone, you’re not going to change anything,” Shugarts said.
He said that if new council members are elected in 2019, the first thing they’ll vote on is to change how the welcome center is utilized. The council’s constituents, he said, are angry about how this welcome center is currently managed.
“It’s not the people working there I have a problem with, it’s the amount of money we’re spending,” Shugarts said. “We need a place for people to come get a brochure, but not for $140,000 a year,” said Shugarts. “They say, ‘Well (the employees) help with tourism on the website’ – for $140,000 a year I could grab anybody to do that process. The point is, there are other things that the money could be put to; smarter things, like fire, rescue, police on the beach, pathways.”
Shugarts estimates the city could be spending only $35,000 on hourly salary for the welcome center, approximately $100,000 less than what it is currently spending. That money, he said, could be put into other tourism improvements, such as beach clean-up at the end of the summer.
Shugarts also asked why the welcome center is open in the winter months, when the population of the town has dwindled to its permanent base of roughly 3,000 people – far below Loftis’ estimation of 30,000 to 40,000 people who come through Surf City during the summer.
Loftis acknowledged that closing the welcome center during the winter months is a possibility upon closer examination of the facility’s rental figures.
“We’d have to sit down and look at those numbers to see,” Loftis said.
Mark Darrough can be reached at Mark@Localvoicemedia.com
