Fourteen key employees at Georgetown Steel will be paid a maximum of $620,000 if an employee retention plan presented to a federal bankruptcy court judge in Charleston on Monday is approved.

Details of the plan, including a breakdown of the amounts to be paid to each employee, were not disclosed to the public after Judge John Waites cleared the courtroom and sealed the records.

Waites said he would rule on the employee retention plan Jan. 13 in Columbia. He may approve all or parts of the settlement, or reject it and make the details public.

Waites' ruling followed a request from Georgetown Steel attorney Michael Beal, who said that detailing the plan in public would not be in the company's best interests. He said those employees were crucial to any type of reorganization or in the transition if the plant is sold, which the company is attempting to do.

Beal disclosed to the courtroom only the amount the employees would be paid and how many were actually working at the mill. Georgetown Steel shut down its furnaces Oct. 21 and filed for bankruptcy protection the next day, throwing 450-plus employees out of work.

Over the objections of the bankruptcy trustee and two newspapers, The Post and Courier and Georgetown Times, Waites said he would clear the courtroom and order the records on the plan sealed. Before clearing the courtroom, he told news reporters that he would hear any objections they had at the next hearing. He then said he would let Beal present testimony at the hearing to show why it was not in the public's interest to know how much each individual was making.

Waites said sealing the records temporarily until the hearing was a difficult decision, adding he may unseal them at the hearing, if that is in the public interest.

He said he was bolstered in his decision by the fact that the United Steelworkers Union, which is a member of the creditors' committee, agreed to keep the records sealed.

Revealing how much money each employee would make would be embarrassing to them and cause friction between the management team running the plant and the employees who were let go when the mill closed, Beal said. He also said Georgetown Steel is not a publicly owned company and it doesn't have to divulge how much employees are paid.

"If everyone in Georgetown knows how much people are being paid, it might cause a rift between the citizens" and "create problems for Georgetown Steel and its former employees," he said.

Although no mention was made at the hearing, Beal said later that as part of the plan, Georgetown Steel intends to hire former steel mill executive Roger Regelbrugge to help sell the plant.

Regelbrugge, who was CEO of Georgetown Industries when it owned the mill, will receive a percentage of the sale and also be paid for his services, Beal said.

Beal also said that if the plan is approved, Georgetown Steel will pay its biggest creditor, CIT Group, and Midcoast Industries, its owner, in full.

U.S. bankruptcy trustee Meg Slocum also objected to Beale's plea to seal the records, saying it was in the public's interest for the information to be made available. "I will not agree to a confidential hearing," Slocum said.

James Sanderson, president of United Steelworkers Local Union 7898, said after the hearing that although the national union agreed to allow the record to be sealed, he felt his membership should have access to all of the facts, not just some of them.

"I feel that everything should be made public," he said.

Keeping key employees during a transition is common among companies that are trying to remain in business, according to bankruptcy specialist Beth C. Grzybowski, a Charleston attorney who represents debtors. She is not involved in the mill's case.

"One of the things that can make a business more saleable is for it to be an ongoing concern," she explained. "Otherwise, it can only be sold for the parts, which is a much lower number in most circumstances."

She said as far as the judge sealing the records is concerned, "being able to continue would benefit the community. If the judge has determined that sealing the records helps with that, he knows more about it than I do."

In other matters, Beal said the company is in discussions with the State Ports Authority for an extension of its lease on a state pier, which it says it needs to make the plant attractive to buyers.

Waites granted an extension until Jan. 20.

Charles deV. Williams covers retail and manufacturing. Contact him at 937-5541 or at cwilliams@postandcourier.com.