Former Tech official rakes in $70K as Pratt Mayor, Police Chief

The following article originally appeared in the Wednesday, Jan. 23 Charleston Gazette, and is reprinted with permission. For a related article, go to The West Virginia Record.

Pratt mayor’s cop pay under fire; Neese made $69K as police chief

by Rusty Marks, Gazette staff writer

Pratt Mayor Ann Neese, who makes $4,800 a year as mayor, has made nearly $69,000 since taking over as the town’s interim police chief about two years ago, payroll records show.

Neese took on the job of interim police chief in November 2005. Since then, she has made $68,773 as police chief, her payroll records show.

Neese, who turns in timesheets showing she works seven days a week, typically reports working between 150 and 170 hours every two weeks. Her timesheets show her working several hours on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

“I told the people of Pratt they’d get 24/7 [police protection], and this is the only way I can do it,” Neese said Tuesday. “It seems like a lot, but it’s cheaper for the town to pay me $8 an hour than to hire additional officers.”
In December 2005, town records show, Neese was authorized to be paid $10 an hour as police chief. At first she said, she got overtime, but later stopped getting overtime and lowered her hourly rate to $8 an hour.

“I’m paid less than the people at the water plant,” she said.

But some town officials think it’s time for Neese to give up her job as police chief and hire a dedicated, full-time police chief.

“She’s been stalling for 2 1/2 years now,” said Pratt Town Councilwoman Rose Perry, who believes Neese has turned the role of interim police chief into her major source of income.

Critics point out that Neese took on the job of police chief shortly after losing her job at the West Virginia Institute of Technology in Montgomery.

Perry and some other present and former town officials question Neese’s timesheets.

“We counted up the hours she was claiming she was on police duty,” Perry said. “How would she have time to eat and sleep?”

Neese says the long hours are necessary to protect the town. Neese and her ex-husband, former Charleston police officer Eric Eagle, are Pratt’s only police officers.

Eagle pleaded guilty in December to one count of obtaining money by false pretenses, a misdemeanor. He admitted that he worked 117 hours in 2000 for security at the Charleston Town Center mall while he was on duty for Charleston police.

“When the other guy’s off, I’m it,” Neese said. “Even on the days he works, I still have to cover 12 hours of that day.

“It’s nothing for me to go out at 3 o’clock in the morning because a dog is barking,” Neese said.

“We’re small-town people here,” Perry said. “We don’t have much crime. We don’t have the FBI doing stakeouts here.”

Although Neese worked as a police officer in Dunbar in the early 1980s and has taken a number of law enforcement classes, she is no longer certified as a police officer.

Neese says a police chief doesn’t have to be, but Perry and some other city officials want the mayor to hire a certified officer as chief.

“It’s time to get a permanent one,” Perry said. “She’s had enough time to find someone else.”

In November, town council tried to force a vote to have Neese removed as police chief. The vote tied and therefore failed, but only because Neese cast a vote not to fire herself.

Marc Slotnik, staff attorney for the Kanawha County Commission, said county officials aren’t allowed to vote on anything in which they have a financial interest. Pratt has a similar policy.

“I should not have voted,” Neese conceded Tuesday. “I just wasn’t thinking at the time.”

But Neese has continued to be paid as police chief. In December, after former town Recorder Lorie Humphrey resigned in frustration, the town council again voted to hire Neese as interim police chief.

Neese said she can’t find someone to serve as police chief who lives close to Pratt and is willing to work for what the town can afford to pay.

Canadian journalist sticks it to the (wo)man

For many outspoken students and student-journalists, this scene is all too familiar. This is the prospect American journalists face if they don't do more to scrutinze what goes on behind the ivy curtain.

Regardless, it's refreshing to hear the voices of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, James Madison and the other Founding Fathers echoed up North. For more on what the controversy is about, go to Salon.com and Human Events.

Also, if you, or someone you know is accused of "hate-speech," contact the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and/or the Student Press Law Center.