ActivePaper Archive RTA OKs longer term for director - Dayton Daily News, 1/10/2009

RTA OKs longer term for director

Trustees change bylaws to allow for a five-year term for Mark Donaghy, whose work has been praised.

Picture

Mark Donaghy

DAYTON — Trustees of the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority are looking at a longer term contract for Executive Director Mark Donaghy, whose most recent raise and bonus boosted his 2008 compensation by nearly 14.3 percent.

Board President Bryan Bucklew said that despite RTA’s tight budget the 4 percent increase in salary and $16,488 performance bonus awarded to Donaghy last fall, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2008, are justified by the quality of his work.

“We are in the middle range of compensation for cities our size and transit systems our size,” Bucklew said.

Donaghy’s annual salary increased to $166,456. With the bonus added it, his total compensation in 2008 was $183,034, Donaghy said.

On Tuesday, Jan. 6, trustees changed the bylaws to allow a five-year contract with the executive director, up from the current three-year maximum.

Donaghy’s three-year contract requires a six-month notice of intent not to renew. The board gave no such notice prior to the contract’s Dec. 31, 2008, expiration date, so it was automatically renewed through the end of this year.

Bucklew said the board is very pleased with the leadership Donaghy has provided RTA since he began work in January 2006. Bucklew said Donaghy has taken RTA in a new direction and made it an entity that the community wants to work with, rather than “has” to work with.

“When you find the right person to lead the organization you need to make sure, within the financial resources you have, we need to do everything we can to retain that person,” Bucklew said.

Donaghy’s next evaluation and consideration of a new five-year contract will be in the first quarter of this year, Bucklew said.