WILMINGTON -- The local North Carolina liquor board that paid its administrator nearly $280,000 a year to manage its stores plans to pay less than half that amount to his replacement.
New Hanover County's Alcoholic Beverage Control board is days away from advertising for a successor to administrator Billy Williams, who is retiring late next month after nearly 42 years, The Star News of Wilmington reported Thursday.
Williams is a high school graduate and former liquor store clerk who became the highest-paid ABC administrator in the state. His yearly salary and bonuses reached $279,615, including a $30,000 bonus and longevity pay. He said this week state officials estimated his retirement pay would total nearly $100,000 a year.
The local ABC board wants Williams' replacement to have a college degree and management experience.
The top salary for the new manager would be $130,000 plus benefits.
Interim ABC Board chairman Bruce Shell said that the county's human resources staff set the new salary range after comparing the job with salaries for other ABC administrators around the state.
Shell, the top day-to-day administrator for New Hanover County's government, took over leadership of the local ABC board this month after the three former liquor board members resigned under fire for giving Williams and his son hefty raises and bonuses.
ABC commission chairman Jon Williams last week decried lavish spending on a convention trip to Phoenix last year by Billy Williams and his son, who is the county ABC board's assistant administrator, as emblematic of a "culture of entitlement" by some officials to spend liquor taxes that should go to municipal treasuries.
The state commission's role in North Carolina's unique system of controlling liquor sales is to set prices, regulate permits, and operate the state warehouse that stores spirits bought from producers. But local liquor boards are the only entities that sell to consumers, and the 161 county and municipal liquor agencies are independently run.
Local liquor outlets last year generated $259 million in liquor taxes for state and local governments, but operating the stores costs about $113 million a year.
