Iowa Central president receives $400K for resignation
Iowa Central Community College President Robert Paxton will collect $400,000 from the school in return for his resignation.
After 13 years as president of the Fort Dodge school, Paxton resigned Wednesday, one day before the school’s board of trustees was scheduled to discuss an undisclosed “personnel matter.”
The special meeting was called after The Des Moines Register published a July 4 photograph of Paxton aboard a boat with a group of young people, holding the spigot of a small beer keg suspended over a young woman’s open mouth.
College trustee Mark Crimmins was aware of the photo before it was published and told the Register that Paxton had done nothing improper and the matter wasn’t deserving of the board’s attention.
When questioned by the Register, Paxton initially denied knowing anything about the photo or any recent boat outings with young people. After being told that Crimmins had already informed the Register that he had seen the photo and the two men had discussed it, Paxton acknowledged the photo’s authenticity. He said he had done nothing illegal or improper.
But the photograph, along with Paxton’s explanation for it, was picked up by other media outlets and sparked a heated debate in Fort Dodge over the personal conduct of public officials.
At today’s board meeting, the trustees met for eight minutes and agreed, without discussion, to accept Paxton’s resignation and approve a compensation package for him. The deal calls for Paxton to receive $200,000 in January 2009 and $200,000 in January 2010...
Paxton, 52, has said all of the people who were drinking in the boat when the photograph was taken were of legal age. He said the beer keg was broken and wasn’t dispensing beer into the young woman’s mouth. He said his 19-year-old son, who was arrested for second-offense drunken driving early the next morning, was in the boat but was not drinking.
