BISMARCK, N.D. -- The president and general manager of the nation's only state-owned mill will receive a $61,857 bonus after a prosperous year in which the mill generated nearly $13.4 million in profits, the second highest in its 92-year history.
The North Dakota Industrial Commission unanimously approved the bonus Wednesday for North Dakota Mill President Vance Taylor, whose base salary for fiscal year 2014 was $208,272.
Taylor's contract provides for an annual bonus of up to 30 percent of his base salary. The maximum bonus he could have received was $62,482.
Karlene Fine, the Industrial Commission's executive director, said the mill in Grand Forks had "a great year." It posted a profit of $13,351,343, up 12 percent over the previous year's $11.9 million profit and second only to 2011's record profit of $16.1 million.
Twenty percent of Taylor's bonus was based on what was distributed to mill employees under a gain-sharing plan. Employees received an annual bonus of roughly 18 percent for meeting certain performance, profit and safety goals.
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The other 10 percent of Taylor's bonus was based on achieving goals laid out by the commission last year in the mill's strategic plan. Fine noted that Taylor and the mill completed most of the goals, including successful union negotiations, an increase in export sales and adding new customers.
"He's a good deal for someone running a mill this size in the United States," said state Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, who serves on the Industrial Commission with Gov. Jack Dalrymple and Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem.
The mill is undergoing a $27 million expansion, which Taylor has said will make it the largest single milling operation in the country. The expansion will increase the mill's capacity by 11,500 hundredweight of flour produced per day to roughly 49,500 hundredweight.
