Maybe I am going to be a voice crying in the wilderness today, but I feel compelled to say something about our values and priorities as reflected in the insane salaries we pay certain people in our society.
People like Mike Hamilton who just left the job of athletic director for the University of Tennessee. He walks away with over a million dollars in his pocket. And Dr. Jim Scales leaves town with a quarter million in his pocket.
I thought it significant that one of the stories about us buying out Scales’ contract appeared on the same page as a story about Nashville extending the contract of Dr. Jesse Register. Why is it a man can be run out of Chattanooga and go to a bigger town for a job with more responsibility and receive more money? Could the answer have something to do with the confrontational picking and gouging that has come to characterize our school board and county commission?
Looking at the big contract buyouts, why can’t we negotiate a contract that says when a person’s performance becomes unsatisfactory they will be given something like $25,000 to $50,000 to relocate? If anyone wouldn’t take a deal like that, I don’t think we would want them anyway.
We follow the same pattern on big local jobs: We go out-of-town and hire someone with impressive credentials and then they don’t work out, and we are stuck with a big buyout. I criticized Erlanger for doing the same thing. Frankly, I have not been overly impressed by any of these hotshots who have been brought in, including the million-dollar baby, Mike Hamilton.