No special parking for big man on campus

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This article was published 17/08/2015 (3423 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

New Red River College president Paul Vogt has to pay for his parking on campus — and he has to scramble to find a spot just like everyone else.

RRC made public Vogt’s contract Monday on his first day on the job under a five-year deal, a deal the college said is intended to be in significant contrast to the years of the scandal-plagued former president Stephanie Forsyth.

“The intent of the contract was to be in contrast” to the Forsyth saga, Red River board of governors chairman Lloyd Schreyer said in an interview.

“Given the history that occurred, given the review by the province, we wanted to have a contract that was modest,” Schreyer said. “We wanted to be proactive and transparent — we’re trying to re-establish a relationship with the community.”

Vogt’s expenses will be reasonable but limited and subject to regular board review, and the president will work under the same expectations as everyone else on campus, Schreyer said.

Gone are Forsyth’s discretionary expenses equal to about four per cent of her salary. “This contract does not contain a discretionary expense account. She could spend four per cent for whatever,” said Schreyer.

Vogt has a starting salary of $225,000, which is $9 a year less than Forsyth received when she started five years ago. And it’s well above the $192,176 highly respected former president Jeff Zabudsky was paid when he left early in 2010.

Schreyer said Vogt will get the same vehicle deal as Forsyth — $1,000 a month to buy or lease a vehicle.

But he can claim only parking fees when doing business within the city, and won’t get mileage unless he goes beyond the Perimeter Highway. And, Vogt not only has to pay to park on the Notre Dame campus, there’ll be no president’s parking spot closest to the door.

“It was decided to move from the designated spot to scramble parking. The president will lead by example; he’ll scramble like everyone else,” said Schreyer.

Vogt’s pay raises will match any increases bargained each year by employees within the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union, but the board of governors can choose to award Vogt merit pay increases of up to three per cent a year.

Forsyth was at $256,726 when she left under a considerable cloud at the end of last August, just short of four years on the job. That’s a 14.1 per cent increase spread over three raises.

During the period Forsyth was on the job, employees saw their pay increase just more than eight per cent, but that was crammed into the end of her tenure after staff went through two years of wage freezes.

Forsyth and the board of governors mutually agreed at the end of August 2014 she would leave the president’s job. Red River has refused to elaborate and has refused to say if she received any severance.

The provincial government launched an investigation into the college’s finances, releasing a blistering report this winter that cited a horde of questionable expenses and spending decisions by Forsyth, and a firing spree that saw 16 senior executives leave in less than four years — including three people whom Forsyth recruited to replace fired senior managers, and whom she subsequently fired.

Forsyth now lives in Penticton, B.C., where her spouse runs a women’s agency, and has advertised her services as a carpenter.

Winnipeg police said recently they are still investigating how marble from the college’s culinary arts building ended up in the renovated kitchen of Forsyth’s former house on Wellington Crescent.

 

Paul Vogt’s contract as Red River College president can be read in its entirety at http://www.rrc.ca/files/file/hr/PresidentContract.pdf

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca