Horry County Council set to make sure Coast CEO contract not “out of line”

Horry County Council will have its hand in a contract to hire a new Coast RTA chief executive officer who it wants to make sure has contract perks that are not “out of line” with multi-year payouts and future benefits after parting ways.

The county’s administration committee will meet Brian Piascik Thursday, Coast RTA’s choice for its new CEO and general manager. Through a funding agreement Coast has with the county, it is required to run the contract and Piascik’s name before the full County Council before Coast can actually hire him.

Council Chairman Mark Lazarus said at council’s April 7 meeting that the reason council wanted to review the contract Coast was going to enter into with its next CEO, was to “make sure that there’s not a severance package that’s in there that’s out of line or that can cost the authority a tremendous amount of money on the back end, and there are no out-clauses that are not acceptable or salary ranges that are not acceptable for this area, considering the kind of money it takes to operate that authority.”

Coast operates on a $5 million annual budget, and it fired Myers Rollins as its chief in April 2013 amid a committee’s examination of a failed bus shelter program that cost the transit more than $324,000. Rollins was given a severance package after the firing for $76,248.68, and his contract outlined future benefit coverage.

Lazarus said the four-month payout to Rollins was not the issue. After all, council just approved a contract for Administrator Chris Eldridge with a clause that would pay him six months of his annual salary, which ranges between $170,000 and $200,000 between next fiscal year and 2018, if either side wants to part ways.

“Chris’ contract is a standard contract with the Association of Administrators,” Lazarus said. “We were more concerned about some of the other mandates [Rollins] was putting out for his future payments for health and other things were not really spelled out right.

“If our severance package read, ‘Chris works this year and we pay him out for the next three years,’ then I’d have a problem with that.”

Lazarus said he thinks a four- to six-month severance payout is “within reason.”

“I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any big out clauses in these contracts,” Lazarus said.

Councilman Johnny Vaught, who also serves on the Coast RTA board of directors, said he thinks council wanted a say-so in who the new chief was based on experience. Vaught joined the council after its funding agreement with Coast.

“We’re looking more at results and what actually happened,” Vaught said. “I don’t think council is going to nit-pick the details of this contract. I think they want to make sure this is the right guy for the job.”

Vaught said he thinks council wanted to make sure there was “nothing screwy in the contract” and that “there’s no strange stuff in it like what was in Rollins’ contract.” Vaught said he was referring to Rollins being able to write his own contract with Coast.

“This one is very straightforward,” Vaught said of the contract that has not been released by Coast because the county has yet to review it. “Mr. Piascik did not write his own contract. He was out to negotiate it and make suggestions as to what he would like to see. Some of those things we didn’t have a problem with and some of them we did.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2015 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Horry County Council set to make sure Coast CEO contract not “out of line”."