Contractors who received work from two-year colleges helped former Postsecondary Chancellor Roy Johnson build a $1 million home in Opelika, according to records and interviews with contractors.

Johnson has not paid the Anniston architectural firm Jenkins Munroe Jenkins for its work, valued at $34,595, said Julian Jenkins. The company designed Johnson's house and monitored its construction in 2004 with the agreement that he would pay for the services when he sold it sometime in the future, Jenkins said.

"I don't see any impropriety whatsoever," Jenkins said. Tommy Tucker, an Opelika painter, said he painted Johnson's new house before he began doing work in 2004 for two-year colleges without having to offer competitive bids for the jobs.

Tucker said Johnson paid him for the work at his house, although he declined to say how much he received.

"Everything I did was legit," Tucker said.

Johnson, who was fired this month by state school board members, moved into the house of more than 5,000 square feet in 2004. The red-brick, four-bedroom, 4 1/2-bath house sits on more than an acre in north Opelika near Lake Sougahatchee in the Sanders Creek subdivision.

The house is valued at more than $1 million, property records show.

Efforts to reach Johnson last week for comment failed. Johnson came under fire from the state Board of Education after The Birmingham News reported that his relatives had received jobs and contracts in the two-year system. Board members unanimously voted to fire him, placing him on paid leave for eight months.

Johnson could receive more than $450,000 in salary and retirement payments by the time he leaves the two-year college payroll next year.

Southern Union's work

Jenkins Munroe Jenkins has handled much of the architectural and construction management work at Southern Union Community College, where Johnson was president before he became system chancellor in 2002, records show.

The company received more than $2.4 million in work from two-year colleges from October 2003 to September 2005, including $1.2 million from Southern Union, finance records show.

Jenkins said his company's work for the system had nothing to do with the work he did on Johnson's home. He said his company has worked at Southern Union and other two-year colleges for decades.

"We were working for that system long before Roy Johnson ever came along," he said.

Jenkins said he offered Johnson the agreement to defer payment on the services for his Opelika home just as he offers contractors and developers similar arrangements, allowing them to pay after they find a buyer for the house.

"We're pretty generous in our residential work," he said. Jenkins Munroe Jenkins works mostly on government and commercial projects, he said; residential jobs make up 30 percent to 40 percent of the company's business.

Jenkins said he could understand why some would view his arrangement with Johnson as improper.

"I guess you could interpret it that way. It would be an incorrect interpretation," he said.

Jenkins said he also reviewed construction plans for a Lake Martin house being built by Joanne Jordan, who was Southern Union president after Johnson became chancellor. Johnson promoted her recently to a vice chancellor's position in the Department of Postsecondary Education.

Jenkins said he did not charge Jordan for the work because he considered it insignificant.

"I looked at those plans with her and I gave her some advice," Jenkins said. "I did not consider it of value, worthy of reimbursement."

Efforts to reach Jordan for comment last week failed.

$25 an hour

Tucker said Johnson paid him personally for the painting work he did at Johnson's house. "He paid me out of his own checking account."

Tucker worked mostly on weekends and holidays at Central Alabama Community College and Southern Union after painting Johnson's house, records show. He received $26,325 from the colleges in payments from March 2005 through June this year, finance records show.

Tucker painted inside buildings on the colleges' Childersburg, Alexander City and Opelika campuses, records show.

Ben and Andy Jordan, brothers who are business managers at Southern Union and Central Alabama, respectively, said Tucker's contract work was not awarded with competitive bids because state law did not require it. Tucker worked for the maintenance departments of the colleges under a contract that paid him $25 an hour.

The brothers, sons of Joanne Jordan, said it's not unusual for colleges to hire some help on an hourly basis, including maintenance and repair crews. "As long as you don't go over $50,000, you don't have to bid it," Ben Jordan said.

Tucker submitted handwritten timesheets for payment, most of which were not signed by a campus official before payment, records show. The timesheets recorded more than 1,000 hours of work since March 2005, according to the records.

Tucker declined to discuss how he learned of work at the campuses. He said the maintenance departments gave him a list of work that needed to be done. He said he discussed his work at times with Susan Salatto, who was president of Central Alabama at the time, and Joanne Jordan, who was at Southern Union.

He said his work for the colleges had nothing to do with his work for Johnson.

"I've been knowing Dr. Johnson for years," he said. "That didn't have anything to do with Southern Union."

Efforts to reach Salatto for comment last week failed.