Builders group seeks ouster of directors

The Home Builders Association of Georgia on Thursday urged its members to call a special meeting to oust the directors of its workers' compensation fund, alleging the directors have funneled profits toward their own compensation.

The trade group said Builders Insurance, the company it created in the early 1990s to provide insurance services to member builders, paid out $1.9 million to directors in 2006 and 2007, which exceeds the director compensation for companies such as Delta Air Lines and UPS.

Since 2000, dividends to policyholders have plunged from 13.6 percent to 1.5 percent, the builders association said.

The builders organization also said the insurance company has changed its bylaws to make it "virtually impossible" for policyholders to remove a director or hold a special meeting.

"Builders Insurance is not being properly managed and has no accountability or transparency," Ed Phillips, the executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Georgia, said in a statement Thursday.

Unemployment in the Augusta-Aiken area declined three-tenths of a percentage point to 5 percent in April, mirroring the state average, the Georgia Department of Labor reported Thursday. The U.S. unadjusted jobless rate is 4.8 percent.

The rate in the six-county area was 4.8 percent in April 2007.

In the Augusta-Aiken area, which includes Richmond, Columbia, Burke and McDuffie counties in Georgia and Aiken and Edgefield counties in South Carolina, the number of jobs was up 2,000, or nine-tenths of 1 percent, from 218,000 to 220,000.

Including the rural counties of Glascock, Hancock, Jefferson, Jenkins, Lincoln, Taliaferro, Warren, Washington and Wilkes, the area's jobless rate would be 5.7 percent in April, down three-tenths of 1 percent from March.

-- From staff reports