GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT)- A local airport director says his agency is cleaning house after a state audit revealed board members weren't doing their job. We first told you about former Pitt-Greenville Airport Director Jim Turcotte's hefty pension paycheck last February. Public outcry brought on a state audit that found he was giving himself unauthorized pay raises. Now, the Airport Authority is changing the way it does business from the inside out.
State Auditor Beth Wood says Jim Turcotte got away with giving himself pay raises because the board wasn't doing its job of overseeing him. Monday, the Airport Authority is presenting policy changes it's made since the audit to the city council.
When Jerry Vickers came in as director of Pitt-Greenville Airport in 2009, the state was wrapping up its audit of the agency. "I think it was fair in many respects and picky in many respects,” he said.
He says the audit spent too much time picking apart the board's policies and procedures. But State Auditor Beth Wood told us back in August that's where former Director Jim Turcotte was taking advantage of the system. "You've got this executive director who's just taking these liberties and nobody is questioning anything that he does and he's doing stuff that's never been approved by the board,” she said.
The audit found personnel policies had not been updated since the mid 1980s- allowing Turcotte to make his own employment contract. Through unauthorized cost-of-living adjustments, Turcotte was making more than $283,000, topping the salaries of top administrators at Charlotte-Douglas and Raleigh-Durham International Airports. "We agree that how would a board member in 2010 know that policy was passed in 1985 if you didn't have a set of standard board policies,” said Vickers. “So you can kind of see the disconnect there."
Following the auditor's recommendations, the board has established new personnel policies and revised its performance appraisal system. For the first time in the airport's history the board has a policy manual outlining its duties.
"We're cleaning house,” said Vickers. “So we should be the model."
Vickers says the organization didn't just survive the audit; it's better because of it. "We had preferred not to go through this but you think about all of our policies and system processes that have been rung out,” he said. “We've tweaked changes in our office handling of different kinds of records and things so we tried to learn something from the audit as well as respond to it."
The state audit found that in his last four years as director Jim Turcotte made nearly $72,000 in selling back vacation days. Now, for the first time in the airport's history the board has a policy manual outlining its duties. The manual makes it clear- the executive director has to report any and all un-used vacation days for the Authority to review.
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