KANNAPOLIS — As the Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce continues trying to sell its headquarters, the organization’s top executive has taken a 25 percent pay cut and other employees are taking unpaid days off.
John Cox, the chamber’s president and CEO, said the pay cut is for the months of September through December and is on top of a 20 percent reduction in salary he took for the entire year of 2009.
“It’s nothing that any business owner wouldn’t do during these difficult economic times to keep their business going,” Cox said.
Meanwhile, four other chamber employees began in September taking an unpaid week off a month through the end of the year. And the chamber is negotiating the sale of its headquarters at 3003 Dale Earnhardt Blvd., where Cox hopes to remain as a tenant.
The chamber lost $60,000 a year the Cabarrus Convention and Visitors Bureau was paying in rent when the tourism agency moved to a new site near Lowe’s Motor Speedway and Concord Mills in southern Cabarrus.
But Cox said while that loss of that revenue hurt, the biggest hit to the chamber’s finances is the fact that even as membership is growing, businesses are choosing less expensive levels of membership.