Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990 TAG: 9004180437
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EXTRA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Wendi Turner, the incumbent director, is expected to be offered the post, which will include a salary and benefits of about $42,000 per year.
No other candidates have been interviewed.
Since 1985 Turner has held the job on a part-time basis, earning $17,010 this year. She also works part time as a case manager for Intracorp., a company that develops rehabilitation programs for people who have been injured.
Asked Monday whether she would accept the offer if it were made, Turner said, "It depends on what the offer is, and the board will be the first to know."
Some board members have questioned the way the matter has been handled since August, when the festival's executive committee proposed making the directorship full-time.
The full-time position and salary package were approved by the board in March. One board member resigned in February because of the dispute.
Two of the dissenters agreed to discuss the matter, but would not be identified. Several other board members declined to comment.
But Suzn Head, the festival's current president, downplayed the disagreement.
"The turmoil . . . has to do with progesterone, and how someone spoke to another person," she said. "It was totally a personality conflict."
One board member complained that establishing the full-time position and its compensation should have been presented as separate items at the board meeting in March. A motion was made to that effect but was defeated 8-6 in a vote.
When presented as a single item, the job and its compensation package were approved, 10-4, according to Head. The board has 22 members, but all did not attend that day's meeting.
Other complaints were that the salary and benefits are too high relative to the salaries of directors of other non-profit organizations in Roanoke, and that the initiatives were presented to the board as final proposals rather than items to be discussed and then decided.
No one criticized Turner's job performance or the need for a full-time festival director. To the contrary, they praised the work she has done since taking over five years ago.
Creating a full-time director's position has been a goal of the board since before Turner was hired, said Barbara Hurd, president of last year's festival.
"We told her at that time we only had funds enough to support a part-time executive director," Hurd said, "but we hoped in the very near future that we would be able to bring her on full time."
Before last August's executive committee retreat in Roanoke, the festival's executive committee gave its budget figures and projections to festival treasurer Ed Newman, a banker, and asked if the organization could afford a full-time executive.
"He determined that even if it rained next time for all the days of the festival, we could still support the [full-time] executive director," Hurd said.
When the full board was informed, "we found that some of our members were questioning this," Hurd said. Another meeting was held so board members could express their concerns and the executive committee could explain its position.
Hurd said she and others on the board had spoken with festival officials in several states and used a compensation survey produced by consultants for the International Festivals Association in California to set the full-time salary and benefits.
"One thing they look at is the relationship of salary to budget," said Bill Collins, full-time director of the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester since October 1980. "Another is the relationship of the administrative cost to the budget."
The Winchester festival will spend between $160,000 and $180,000 of its $525,000 budget on salaries and administration. With a part-time director, Festival in the Park will spend about $20,000 of its total estimated $293,000 budget for salary and administration.
If the full-time salary were paid this year, the administrative expense would amount to just more than 15 percent of the total budget. In Winchester, the figure is more than 30 percent of the total budget.
Collins said his salary is somewhat below what Roanoke's full-time director, presumably Turner, would make, "but I've got a full-time director of marketing, a full-time director of sales, two full-time clerical people and a half-time clerical person. Theoretically, at least, I don't spend the time she's spending doing all that stuff."
The Apple Blossom Festival is four days long while the Roanoke festival goes for eight days. It takes place almost entirely at one site, while the Roanoke festival occurs at three: the Roanoke River, Elmwood Park and Victory Stadium.
In a telephone interview, Collins said the proposed salary in Roanoke seems "fair to low," based on his experience in the festival industry.
And, he said, Roanoke's proposed budget of $293,000 seems "a little bit misleading." He said the Roanoke festival could never be put on for that amount without "an awful lot of in-kind service" from volunteers, businesses and the city.
Turner has no paid staff but relies heavily on volunteers. About 1,500 people work without pay during the festival, and local and regional businesses provide equipment and the people to set it up. Roanoke City parks employees prepare Elmwood Park and other sites, and city electricians are on call throughout its eight-day run.
Don Lunday, director of the 500-member International Festivals Association in Pasadena, Calif., said in telephone interview that the proposed compensation for the Roanoke festival is "right smack where you belong."
He said 35 percent of the members in the survey paid their directors between $35,000 and $45,000. The participating festivals had budgets ranging from less than $50,000 to more than $2 million. Almost half were in the $100,000 to $500,000 range.
He said he was shocked to learn that Turner has no paid staff.
"For all our reporting festivals, the average full-time staff is seven, including the executive director."
The festival board in Roanoke did not seriously consider interviewing candidates other than Turner, according to Head.
"We have somebody who certainly has a lot of experience with festivals and in-depth relationships with the sponsors and knows the operation," she said. "Why should we spend a non-profit's money and time looking for someone else? We're supposed to make our sponsors' money go as far as we can."
The festival is in its 21st year. It began in 1970 as a project of the Junior League of Roanoke Inc., a larger version of a spring market festival begun in 1968 by Downtown Roanoke Inc. Now it is run by an independent, non-profit corporation.
This year, Blood, Sweat and Tears will be the headline musical attraction with January Rose at Victory Stadium on Friday, May 25, and a Chinese circus troupe will close out the activities with a show in the stadium the night of Sunday, June 3.
The festival will occur over Memorial Day weekend and the weekend after it.
Though no reliable crowd figures are available, Turner estimates 350,000 people or more attend. The same estimate applies to the Apple Blossom Festival.
In an interview at her home, Turner described the executive director's post as "more of a full-time job on a part-time salary," and noted that $40,000 is less than the salary of Doug Fonder, the director of the Virginia CorEast State Games. He is earning $44,000 to administer a 17-month start-up budget of $694,000. Some 9,000 volunteers will work the games in Roanoke July 5-8.
Four full-time employees are on the staff of the games.
This year, Roanoke's festival expects to spend $222,882 and hopes to take in $293,000. A goal of $100,000 in corporate sponsorships and contributions will not be met, officials say, but last year's total of $85,000 has already been exceeded.
Surplus funds from each year's festival help to stage the next year's. The festival has $160,000 in the bank, and hopes to increase its account to the equivalent of its annual budget, perhaps by next year.
Last year's festival earned about $45,000 from sponsorships and its share of concessions, Ed Newman said.
Head said that if Turner accepts an offer from the board, she would not begin to receive her full-time salary until after this year's festival.
by CNB