May 21, 2012
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- The chair of the board of Knoxville Tourism and Sports Corporation (KTSC) resigned Wednesday afternoon.
At the heart of situation, KTSC has released new documents relating to the compensation of president and CEO Gloria Ray.
Interim Chair of the Board Sue Brown says they have gotten dozens of requests for information, and decided the documents were public information since the non-profit receives taxpayer money from the Knoxville City and County budgets.
The documents revealed about 62 percent of their budget went to the salaries of 27 employees.
One of those employees, Ray, is a former UT Women's Athletic Director. She made over $400,000 last year with incentives and bonuses. Now that's upset many Knox County Commissioners.
Here's how her salary breaks down.
Ray's base compensation through June of 2011 is $221,668 dollars.
Add in incentive bonuses from hotel and motel taxes, economic impact and media coverage, that puts her salary over $411,000. She also received 10 weeks of vacation for 2011-12.
Compared with cities like Chattanooga and Nashville, those numbers are very high. Some commissioners are calling her pay excessive.
But we want to emphasize, this is not a criminal investigation.
Chair David Duncan said in his letter of resignation, "I have been very concerned over the past few weeks about how we can be responsive to the concerns that have been raised and to restore the reputation of KTSC as an organization and confidence in its leadership. I believe that KTSC would be better served by different leadership of the board.”
Vice chair of the board, Susan Brown, will now take the place of interim chair, like the by-laws at KTSC suggests.
The KTSC Board of Directors will meet Friday at 1:30 to talk about what happens next.
“KTSC is committed to getting this very distracting issue behind us in order to clear the air and move forward to do our job of recruiting visitors and meetings to our community,” Brown said.
Brown says the board will also meet with the City of Knoxville and Knox County to answer questions and discuss future plans.
