WILMINGTON, NC (WHQR) – Morton’s chief of staff, Michelle Lee, also received a 45% increase over this period—with a salary of $161,208. She started at $106,656 in 2021. Meanwhile, per legislative mandate, faculty and staff salaries have only increased by about 13% over these four years.

Morton’s raises have been almost unanimously approved, with the exception of Ray Funderburk, a CFCC Board of Trustees member who cast the lone dissenting vote in 2022. Funderburk was later removed from the board after a public hearing.

This year, several trustees dissented, including New Hanover County Commissioner Jonathan Barfield, Deloris Rhodes, Bruce Shell, and Deborah Dicks Maxwell. Pender County Commissioner Brad George abstained from the vote.

At the time, Barfield said he would have approved a smaller raise, on par with what county employees received, but objected to the full 12% raise and the significant bonus. He would later criticize these during the county’s contentious budget vote.

“How you can get someone a $43,000 raise and a $25,000 bonus when your own manager’s not doing anywhere near that, and your own employees aren’t seeing the same type of an increase. It is irresponsible,” Barfield said.

New Hanover County Commissioner Dane Scalise, Lanny Wilson, Zander Guy, Robby Collins, Louis Burney, Bill Cherry, Jason McLeod, Paula Sewell, and Marc Sosne voted in favor.

A new state law requires the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) Board of Trustees to vote to approve Morton’s contract extension; they did so unanimously.

Those in Morton’s upper administration also received significant increases and promotions, including Shawn Dixon, the Provost of North Campus (45%), and Shawn Breedlove, the Executive Director of Safety and Auxiliary (98%). His highest-paid employee is Vice President of Academic Affairs Brandon Guthrie, who makes $165,000, followed by Vice President of Business Services Christina Greene, who makes $164,196. Guthrie received an 11% increase due to the state mandate and an increase in his scope of work.

In the past year, Breedlove received two promotions and a legislative increase, and Dixon received a promotion and a salary readjustment. Logan Thompson, who runs CFCC’s Foundation, also received a 26% increase and is now making $120,000. Susan Porter, the Director of the President’s Office, received an 18% increase for a promotion and a labor market adjustment.

The state places a cap on salary for all employees paid from state funds and another cap on state-paid salaries for presidents. If a person’s salary exceeds those caps at CFCC, New Hanover and Pender counties pay the amount beyond that cap. Last year, local New Hanover and Pender counties taxpayers paid over $325,000 to support salaries and all benefits (including health insurance) for Morton and his higher-paid staff.

In the last four years, the county taxpayers’ payment for all administrative salaries has increased by 29%, from $1 million to $1.3 million. Last year’s budget increased by 11%. This report was generated in the fall of 2024, before Morton’s last raise, so this percentage will increase.

During the recent budget cycle, CFCC didn’t get all the funding it wanted from New Hanover County; the college requested $16.8 million but received only $13.9 million.

Justification for Morton’s raise

According to the CFCC board’s May minutes, then Board Chair Robby Collins said Morton’s evaluation, which preceded the vote for his $43,000 raise and $25,000 bonus, was “very favorable,” adding that the trustees were “pleased with the direction the college is moving. ”

Collins, who was unanimously reappointed by county commissioners to serve another four-year term recently, said Morton was responsible for “the largest fundraising year, most grants awardedmany new student initiatives, continued enrollment growth, funding to build a new ship for marine techthe acquisition and renovation of a new nursing building to expand the programand finding creative ways to fund faculty and staff increases.”

Payroll records provided by the state college system (NCCCS) show that most of the funding for these increases came directly from the state. This included legislative increases and regular funding based on FTE (full-time equivalency, which is how state funding is calculated), which all community colleges receive. Faculty and staff performance bonuses also come from state coffers and are funds all community colleges receive. Another state allocation provided all community colleges with a salary increase from the labor market increase fund.

Morton told the board in May that due to increased enrollment and FTE, “the college is projected to up 6.7% in funding, representing ($4.2 million). This is the second consecutive year we exceeded the previous year by 6.7, representing $4 million in funding. Therefore, based on projections, we have increased funding by over $8 million in the last two years.”

While Morton accurately cited the projections at the time, those forecasts are subject to change because students can drop classes—and that’s what happened to CFCC’s FTEs. According to state budget files, instead of a 6.7% FTE increase, the college saw a minor bump that increased the budget by $1.8 million, not $4 million, as Morton had suggested.

This was not mentioned in the President’s report to trustees at the September board meeting, and no trustees asked if the projections had been realized.

While Morton has received significant raises consistently over the past four years, along with May’s $25,000 bonus, former employees continue to go on record about his and his upper management’s alleged toxic work environment. Additionally, CFCC had an accreditation warning from SACSCOC regarding faculty retention and student outcomes and had to send funds back to the state for miscalculating full-time equivalence (FTE) credits after letting go most of the FTE department in 2022.

Marine technology students were recently barred from entering the trustees’ board room in July; they were sent to a room downstairs to view the meeting. They came to voice their concerns after Jason Rogers, the veteran leader of the program, was removed from his position. Students have also said Morton has refused to meet with them on the issue.

Since taking the helm as president, Morton has avoided an independent third-party climate survey of his leadership of the college. Some employees and students have gone on record to say that the environment is “toxic” at CFCCthey’ve asked why, if there are no workplace issues, is an independent survey not being done?

Student outcomes and retention of faculty

CFCC’s metrics on student outcomes from 2022-2023 have been average compared to other community colleges throughout the state. According to a state report, basic skills, first-year progress, curriculum completion, math success, licensure pass rate, English credit, and transfer performance are all average. CFCC has not received any marks for ‘excellence.’

The college’s staffing levels have also decreased over time, while enrollment has grown around the same pace as the state enrollment average.

One of the findings from the SACSCOC warning last December was that CFCC needed to provide more evidence that the number of faculty is sufficient to ensure instructional quality. The latest statistics from the state system show that close to a quarter have left to work elsewhere. According to the college’s personnel reports, around 118 staff members either left or retired in fiscal year 2023-2024 (the college, as of October 2023, had 1,168 employees, about half full-time and half part-time).

When looking at retention for full-time faculty for both curriculum and continuing education, the last time the curriculum faculty had an attrition rate below 5% was in 2015.

For continuing education, it’s historically been much higher.

CFCC is close to the bottom quarter compared to other institutions in terms of retention of these faculty members.

Faculty salary increases

Earlier in the spring, several CFCC faculty members who would like to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation told WHQR that they received an index card with their salary increase written on it. Records show that, on average, they received a 13% increase across the board from state funding. These staff members thought this odd, so WHQR asked the college why they decided to do this; this isn’t the first time the college has avoided a paper trail.

Christina Hallingse, a spokesperson for CFCC, wrote, “(the college) thing to supervisors personally share the good news about a pay increase with their employees. This approach wasn’t intended to (in your words) ‘avoid a digital trail’ but rather to create an opportunity for supervisors to engage in one-on-one conversations, allowing them to commend each employee for their work.”

However, not all employees received these raises. About 10% just received the state-mandated raise of 4%. Last year’s state mandate was 3%. Those employees came from areas like trucking and welding. Form marine technology chair Jason Rogerswho now works as a biology instructor, received the flat 4%. Along with the former chair of the English department, Margo Williams, who recently retired.

Some even received increases of over 50%. Those were Scott Bass (126%) in light construction, Jaime Chadwick (50%) in culinary arts (promoted to director), George Weeks (108%) in welding, and Linda Quinn-Mayton (55%) in dental assistance (program director).

You can read the story at WHQR here.

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