The FAMU Board of Trustees could have inked an agreement to change President James H. Ammons’ guaranteed annual bonus into a performance-based incentive months ago. But the process was held up by former Chairman Bill Jennings’ decision to insist on two additional changes that he did not mention to fellow board members back at the September 23, 2010 meeting, when he first announced his intention to meet with Ammons and discuss “restructuring” the bonus clause. At the recent August 4, 2011 meeting, Jennings confirmed that he had asked Ammons about changing the “super-majority” clause and “evergreen” status within his contract. Back at the September 23, 2010 meeting, Jennings only told the board about his plans to try and re-negotiate the bonus clause.
The super-majority clause require nine votes, rather than a simple majority of seven votes, to terminate the president’s contract without cause. The evergreen status automatically renews the current contractual agreement year-to-year.
While the three clauses under review may seem overly generous and favorable to Ammons, one must keep in mind that they were probably necessary to lure any decent president to FAMU following Castell Bryant and the highly dysfunctional boards led by Jim Corbin and Challis Lowe.
According to Jennings, Ammons told him that he is fine with changing his guaranteed annual bonus into a performance-based incentive. But there has been no agreement on the other two items. Jennings claimed that the president is “open” to further discussion about changing super-majority requirement and evergreen status.
Ammons remained silent as Jennings talked about the matter at the meeting.
The super-majority and evergreen issues probably would not have come up at the meeting had the chairmanship election gone differently. Before the August 4th Board Meeting, Rattler Nation learned that there was a strong possibility of a deal being cut to let Jennings keep his power as the chief negotiator and committee-of-one for reworking the presidential contract. All hope of that died once it became clear that Jennings ally and Vice-Chairman Richard A. Dent, III did not have enough support to be a competitive candidate for the chair position.
Karl White, another Jennings ally, introduced the motion to establish a board committee that would be charged with continuing discussions on changing the super-majority and evergreen status within the contract in addition to the bonus. The move ensured that new Chairman Solomon L. Badger, III would not assume Jennings’ former role as a committee-of-one to renegotiate Ammons’ contract. Or else, the super-majority and evergreen issues might have been dropped.
Even though Trustee Charles Langston was not at the most recent board meeting, Rattler Nation is hearing that he is solidly on board with Jennings, Dent, and White. Most of the other trustees are either neutral or skeptical about making changes on anything beyond the bonus clause.
Ammons is not the only president of a public, four-year degree-granting institution in Florida who has a super-majority requirement. Daytona State College President Carol Eaton also negotiated a super-majority clause in her employment agreement.
Jennings has shown a lack of objectivity on presidential contract matters during his years on the board. He has called for big changes in Ammons’ contract even though he never tried to change former Interim President Castell V. Bryant’s contract after it became clear she had received a bonus and raise primarily based on financial claims that turned out to be untrue. That led many Rattlers to openly wonder whether he and Castell were looking out for one another.
Time is running down for Jennings and his group of followers to get anywhere in what they are trying to do to Ammons. Jennings and Langston’s terms both end on January 6, 2013. Jennings already lost a big supporter when R.B. Holmes was booted off the board earlier this year. R.B. had joined Jennings in giving Ammons a hard time after the president accepted the resignation of Ronald Holmes, R.B.’s brother and the former superintendent of the Developmental Research School.
Ammons was right to insist on the super-majority clause when he was hired in 2007 and is wise not to let Jennings strong-arm him into giving them up. The governor’s office and Florida Board of Governors have a habit of dumping large numbers of low quality trustees on FAMU’s board that they would never consider appointing to any other public university. No other institution in the State University System has had to deal with trustees like Jim Corbin, Castell V. Bryant, Challis Lowe, R.B. Holmes, or Bill Jennings. That is why no other university board has ever been incompetent enough to let its school get on probation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
As long as FAMU continues to get people like Jennings on its board and trustees who are misguided enough to follow him, the super-majority clause and evergreen status should stay in place.