College president to resign, collect $400,000

[WriteDown]

Source: Des Moines Register

Iowa Central Community College President Robert Paxton will collect $400,000 from the school in return for his resignation.

After 13 years as president of the Fort Dodge school, Paxton resigned Wednesday, one day before the school's board of trustees was scheduled to discuss an undisclosed "personnel matter."
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The special meeting was called after The Des Moines Register published a July 4 photograph of Paxton aboard a boat with a group of young people, holding the spigot of a small beer keg suspended over a young woman's open mouth.

At Thursday's meeting, the trustees met for eight minutes and agreed, without discussion, to accept Paxton's resignation and approve a compensation package for him. The deal calls for Paxton to receive $200,000 in January 2009 and $200,000 in January 2010....?!?!

Read more: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080829/NEWS/808290376

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400K?!?!?!? Are you kidding me?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Iowa Central COMMUNITY College

A community college president gets $400,000 for resigning? Is he blackmailing the community college board? That is public money, you know.

[WriteDown]

3. That's what I can't understand...

400K has to be a large sum for a community college system.

[Wapsie B]

4. Either a payoff was agreed upon contractually when he took the job

or he's got some dirt on one of the trustees. As for the amount of money, Central Iowa has a lot of wealthy farmers there. Blue-collar, middle-class Fort Dodge is hurting, but there's a lot of what I call hidden wealth amongst the agricultural community.

[Wapsie B]

2. Yeah, that's messed up.

I don't believe in golden parachutes for anyone, CEO's or administrators. If you're fired, tough shit, hit the road like anyone else.

[UpInArms]

5. lookie who he gives political contributions to

http://newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=Fort+Dodge++++++++&st=IA&last=paxton&first=robert

Paxton, Robert 
Fort Dodge , IA 50501
Iowa Central Community College/Pres	LATHAM, THOMAS P. (R)
House (IA 04)
LATHAM FOR CONGRESS	$250
primary	06/07/05	
Paxton, Robert 
Fort Dodge , IA 50501
Iowa Central Community College/Pres	LATHAM, THOMAS P. (R)
House (IA 04)
LATHAM FOR CONGRESS	$500
general	10/26/04	
Paxton, Robert 
Fort Dodge , IA 50501
Iowa Central Community College/Pres	LATHAM, THOMAS P. (R)
House (IA 04)
LATHAM FOR CONGRESS	$500
general	08/02/04	
Paxton, Dr. Robert
Fort Dodge, IA 50501
Iowa Central Community College/Pres	LATHAM, THOMAS P. (R)
House (IA 04)
LATHAM FOR CONGRESS	$500
primary	08/15/03

[mwb970]

6. You beat me to it.

The moment I read the story, I knew this guy was a Republican. The greed, the sick behavior with children, the mysterious "troubles" - Republican all the way!

[mudderfudder77]

9. What part of his behavior was "sick"?

The guy was drinking on a boat with people over 21. I must be one sick bastard if that is all it takes. As for the greed part - if it was written in his contract how is that greedy?

[roody]

10. The college president is supposed to be the grownup.

[mudderfudder77]

11. So what was the problem.

Someone needs to help me out, because I am having a real problem understanding what the problem is. He was fired because of a picture of him on a boat drinking with other adults - all of legal drinking age.

He wasn't hanging out with teenagers or pre-teens, these were adults. They weren't doing anything illegal. Someone spell it out for me because I must be dense as hell.

[WriteDown]

12. Same problem as a professor dating a student n/t

[ElboRuum]

13. Please define grownup for me.

I'm having a little difficulty with consenting adults carrousing with one another not being a "grownup" thing.

[mwb970]

16. I guess they weren't "children", I read it too fast.

But this still doesn't sound normal to me:

holding the spigot of a small beer keg suspended over a young woman's open mouth

Is that something you typically do? Maybe I'm being priggish, but that behavior strikes me as, at best, unseemly.

[WriteDown]

7. Doubt that has anything to do with it....

Looks like either he had this amount in his contract when he took the job, or he threatened that they would have to drag him out of his office and he would lawyer up, so they offered him 400K to avoid the hassle.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

8. National avg compensation for c.c. presidents in 2006: $154,000.

http://dayton.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2007/05/14/story1.html
I'd have to dig a little further to see if that's total compensation or just salary.

[ElboRuum]

14. $400,000 was a 'get lost' bribe. n/t

[Gidney N Cloyd]

17. More like they bought out 2 years of his contract. nt

[Bette Noir]

15. Hey, I'll quit my job for $400 grand.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

18. Naw.

Read to the end of the article. The guy's got some serious legal matters hanging over his head, and my guess is that there are other issues that would make the trustees want to get rid of him. That's a cheap enough price to pay to avoid what's probably going to be an ugly sideshow.

His 19-year-old son arrested for drunken driving the same day the old man's out there on the lake doing lots of beer with pretty young things? And the old man lies about having been out on the lake with the pretty young things until he's confronted with the photo?

Yeah, that's a family you want to cuddle up to, because you can tell they're going to make you proud.

They were just waiting for any excuse to get ride of him, that's my guess.