Columbus Co. man works on 5 town payrolls

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TABOR CITY, NC (WECT) - Some people juggle two or three jobs to pay the bills, and one particular man from Columbus County is no different – he has almost a dozen different jobs, and now he's running for the state house, too.

Al Leonard has worked as the Town Manager of Tabor City for 25 years, and he's also on the payroll in Fair Bluff, Boardman, Brunswick, and Cerro Gordo.

Leonard gets paid $77,000 a year to be the Tabor City Town Manager, but he also gets paid $1,497 a month to be the part-time town manager, zoning administrator, planning director, and licensed waterworks operator for the Town of Fair Bluff.

He receieves another $811 a month from the Town of Brunswick to serve as their planning director, and Cerro Gordo and Boardman each pay Leonard $225 a month to serve as a town consultant.

That brings his total annual salary to $110,000.

Leonard says he always wanted to work in town management, and holding these jobs is a dream come true for him.

"I get up early and I go to bed late," Leonard said. "Last year in 2011, I went to over 300 meetings after five o'clock."

WECT.com followed Leonard around on Thursday as he checked out renovations to a local ballpark, checked on windows that needed to be replaced at the library, and dropped off grant documents to the Tabor City Mayor.

Leonard says he puts in more than 60 hours a week working for five municipalities, but that's not stopping him from campaigning to be a state representative.

Leonard says he's very aware of the need to keep his day jobs and campaign separate.

"I think that every voter wants to feel like the candidate they are voting for is on the up and up, and so I certainly want to send the message that I am doing my very best to separate my management profession from my interest as a candidate, and I've not had any citizen come to me and say I've got a problem with what you are doing," he said.

Aside from avoiding campaign work on the clock, WECT.com was curious as to how many publicly paid positions one person is allowed to have at the same time.

UNC School of Government Professor Bob Joyce says North Carolina law limits multiple office holdings so that the responsibilities of government are not concentrated in too few hands, and to prevent corruption.

When presented with Al Leonard's multiple job scenario, Joyce said that it did not appear to be a violation of the multiple office law, because of the nature of the positions. He said for some small towns with limited budgets, sharing staff just makes sense.

So how does he juggle it all? Leonard says he's accrued about a year and a half of time off during his 25 years as Tabor City Manager.

So, if he has a campaign event to attend to in the middle of the day, he just takes some time off from his job with the town.

If he's able to win the upcoming election to the state house, he would be required by law to resign from his job as Tabor City Town Manager, but he would be able to continue his part time positions with the smaller towns.