Dear Editor:

As a byproduct of the NCTC Board of Directors election process, critics of NCTC, its board of Directors and management have chosen to disperse information which is at best misleading and in other instances just not accurate. We have a great local telephone coop of which I am very proud and I believe its honor needs defending.

Managers Pay Increase

Many are talking about the general manager’s pay raise. In order to determine appropriate pay increases the board of directors did a survey of other similar size and type companies for the region and the current manager’s salary is not above the average for the southeast region, and is much lower than the total US. In addition, our cooperative, through the efforts of our current manager, receives reimbursement funds that provide for every dollar that the manager is paid, 65 cents is recovered from the fund and not paid by the members of North Central Telephone Cooperative.

The facts are that the current manager was hired in at a salary much lower than the former manager. The current managers’ total pay today is still less than the former manager’s total package was five years ago.

In addition, the increase that the manager received was based on the cooperative’s performance. Net income grew by 52% overall. In the past, the cooperative has not taken full advantage of programs that are available to pay back rural cooperatives for investing in the network that serves the members. NCTC started participating fully in these programs by bringing in consultants for short-term project to advise on how best to utilize these programs. This year NCTC’s recovery is 5 times larger than the before the current manager arrived. There is no other cooperative around that has delivered these types of results in such a short time period and we are very proud of the performance.

It is noteworthy that our critics fail to distinguish between a performance pay measured in the thousands when the results of the efforts of the manager are measured in the millions— millions that have been brought in for the cooperative and the people of this area.

Local Hiring

The cooperative is a federal contractor; therefore, we must adhere to our affirmative action policy to recruit qualified minorities, women, people with disabilities, and veterans regardless of where they live. Our critic has stated that we should only hire locally, which would be against the law. It has been a longstanding policy of NCTC to adhere to all laws and this will continue to be the cooperatives’ policy.

$25Million Loan repayment

Our critics have also suggested that the company cannot pay the $25 million dollar loan that was part of our Broadband Stimulus Grant/Loan. Not only does NCTC have a financial plan to pay back all its loans over time, but it will in fact receive support from the government that will cover more than 90% of the total loan over the next 17 years, as this particular loan is being used only for building better connections to our customers.

Nancy White, President/CEO NCTC