How much is the Warren County Pollution Authority Director's annual salary?

Update: 04/11/2013:

I received the following e-mail today from Mr. Williams:
  
Mr. Paff,
Your e-mail below has been forwarded to all the PCFA Board Members.
You will also find listed below my annual salary as reported on the W-2 forms for the following years:
2008=$96,000
2009=$97,920
2010=$99,879
2011=$106,969
2012=$106,969
2013= As of this date, the Authority has not set or discussed employee raises for 2013, therefore as of this date my salary for 2013 remains at $106,969.
 
Jim
 ---------------------------------------------------

April 9, 2013

Robert Davenport, Chairman and members of the Board of the
Pollution Control Financing Authority of Warren County
P.O. Box 587
Oxford, NJ  07863
(via e-mail only to jwilliams@pcfawc.com)

Dear Chairman Davenport and Board members:

As you can see from the subject line of this e-mail, I am interested in learning the answer to what should be a fairly straightforward question: How much does James J. Williams get paid as the Authority's Director of Operations?

A colleague of mine has been working on obtaining an answer since February.  First, she submitted an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request for the contract between Williams and the Authority.  She received a February 22, 2013 letter from the Authority advising that the Authority has no such contract. 

Next, she submitted an OPRA request for "any resolutions or writings that set forth the basis for [Williams'] compensation."  In response, she received twenty pages of records consisting of the Authority's regular and executive meeting minutes.  I have put those twenty pages on-line here for your ready reference and my analysis of them follows:
It's more than a bit distressing that the Authority doesn't have records that plainly set out important facts such as the salaries of top officials.  Needed are public meeting minutes that contain resolutions such as "Resolved, that the salary of Director of Operations James J. Williams shall be $120,000 for the 2013 calendar year."  Such would enable interested members of the public to easily obtain information about the Authority's operations.

Do you agree with me that plainer, clearer resolutions would be in the public's interest?  If so, will you agree to discuss this e-mail with the Board at its April 22, 2013 meeting?

If you do elect to discuss this e-mail at the meeting, I would also ask that you discuss the Board's apparent policy of discussing and deciding Mr. Williams' salary during executive session.  While I understand why the Board may want to privately and candidly discuss Mr. Williams' performance outside of his presence, I note that both the April 9, 2008 and February 23, 2011 executive session minutes show that Mr. Williams attended these closed-door meetings.  Thus, the only people who were kept in the dark about Mr. Williams' salary were citizens and taxpayers--those for whom the Open Public Meetings Act was designed to inform.

A dose of transparency would, in my view, be especially good medicine for the PCFA given the controversy that has surrounded it lately.  See, e.g. "Warren County Pollution Control Financing Authority investigation labeled 'whitewash' by whistleblower," Express-Times, August 5, 2012 and "Warren County landfill looks to recoup $116,565 stolen by clerk," Express-Times, March 28, 2012.

Although OPRA doesn't require the Authority to create records that do not exist, would you extend the courtesy of creating and sending me a record that lists Mr. Williams' annual compensation (i.e., the amount reported on his W-2 form) for each year beginning in 2008 and ending with what is projected for 2013? 

Thank you for your attention to this matter.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Very truly yours,

John Paff, Chairman
New Jersey Libertarian Party's
Open Government Advocacy Project
P.O. Box 5424
Somerset, NJ  08875
Voice: 732-873-1251
Fax: 908-325-0129
e-mail: paff@pobox.com