Questions Raised Over Steele's Hiring of Friends

[clenz]

When Michael S. Steele took over as chairman of the Republican National Committee earlier this year, he brought along longtime personal assistant Belinda Cook and gave her a salary nearly three times what her predecessor made.

Mrs. Cook's son, Lee, also landed an RNC job.

Mr. Steele hired another family friend, Angela Sailor, to be the party's outreach director at a salary of $180,000, more than double her predecessor's compensation, though new responsibilities have been added to the job, according to a high-ranking RNC official and Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.

Mr. Steele's early record and personnel decisions figure to be hot topics at a special meeting of Republican state party chairmen Tuesday and Wednesday at National Harbor in Washington's Maryland suburbs. His hiring of friends and the salaries he is paying them already helped to instigate a struggle over who controls the party's purse strings, one that forced the new party chairman to relinquish some control to elected RNC members.

"These salaries we hear about are way out of line for what staff should be paid for working for a political party, which most of us think of as a cause," said Hawaii Republican Party Chairman Willis Lee. "And if certain staff at the national committee are making that much, then the public understandably might think they are examples of cronyism."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05 ... g-friends/

[UNI88]

When Michael S. Steele took over as chairman of the Republican National Committee earlier this year, he brought along longtime personal assistant Belinda Cook and gave her a salary nearly three times what her predecessor made.

Mrs. Cook's son, Lee, also landed an RNC job.

Mr. Steele hired another family friend, Angela Sailor, to be the party's outreach director at a salary of $180,000, more than double her predecessor's compensation, though new responsibilities have been added to the job, according to a high-ranking RNC official and Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.

Mr. Steele's early record and personnel decisions figure to be hot topics at a special meeting of Republican state party chairmen Tuesday and Wednesday at National Harbor in Washington's Maryland suburbs. His hiring of friends and the salaries he is paying them already helped to instigate a struggle over who controls the party's purse strings, one that forced the new party chairman to relinquish some control to elected RNC members.

"These salaries we hear about are way out of line for what staff should be paid for working for a political party, which most of us think of as a cause," said Hawaii Republican Party Chairman Willis Lee. "And if certain staff at the national committee are making that much, then the public understandably might think they are examples of cronyism."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05 ... g-friends/

With an organization like the RNC, IMO it would be best for the Board to approve the amount budgeted for compensation in a given fiscal year and leave it up to the executive to make the decisions regarding individual compensation. If the executive wants to significantly exceed the budgeted amount he/she should go to the Board for approval. The executive has dropped the ball if a situtation like this arises where the Board needs to examine individual compensation levels. A good executive does not want a Board to be mucking around and micro-managing the every day workings of an organization.

[dbackjon]

That is wow.

A chairman should be able to bring on his personal assistant, but at triple the salary? That is bad.

Add to that all the other crony hirings...

[Appaholic]

WOW!...Cronyism in politics!!.....who would've thought??!!