Housing agency raises salaries

Many private companies and local governments have turned to layoffs, furloughs and pay cuts to offset declining revenues this year, but the Charleston Housing Authority is running a budget surplus and awarded pay raises to 28 employees this week.

The raises in yearly pay, ranging from $62 to $11,338, followed a compensation study conducted for the authority by an outside consultant. The report runs more than 500 pages, with recommended pay scales and job descriptions for every authority position, and cost nearly $20,000.

The authority plans to consider more pay increases later this year for employees who have been with the authority, or in their current positions, for long periods of time. Otherwise, some longtime employees would be earning the same salaries as newly hired workers because the minimum pay for their positions was increased.

Authority Executive Director Don Cameron said the Housing Authority wanted to make sure its employees were appropriately compensated and could afford to do so because the authority has not faced the budget problems of surrounding local governments. In fact, the authority has what amounts to a budget surplus this year.

Local governments have struggled because revenue from sales taxes and construction permits have declined dramatically during this recession. The authority gets no funding from local taxes, relying instead upon federal operating subsidies and rent collected from its tenants.

Cameron said that, largely because of the recession, the authority's rental units have been turning over less frequently. While that means longer waits for people hoping to get into low-income housing, low turnover helps the authority's bottom line because occupied apartments mean more revenue.

"We're operating in the black and putting money into improvements," Cameron said.

The authority's board approved the pay raises awarded this week at a meeting Tuesday evening. The raises took effect Wednesday.

Board members present at the meeting were Henry Williams, Edward Kronsberg, Cynthia Hurd and Catherine Jones. They had few questions about the salary recommendations, but Kronsberg questioned the highest raise, an $11,338 bump for a property manager in the Office of Special Needs Housing.

"The person was undervalued," Cameron said.

He said the raise would bring the property manager in line with other authority property managers. Cameron said the employee, who was not named, deals with some of the authority's most difficult client population, the homeless and mentally challenged.

Cameron also said that the manager will be responsible for an additional 130 housing units if the authority's planned purchase of three privately owned buildings of subsidized housing is successful.

Together, the raises for 28 employees will cost the authority $54,643 over the next year.

Reach David Slade at 937-5552 or dslade@postandcourier.com.