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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCalled Commission Meeting April 15, 2014 CALLED MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER April 15, 2014 Augusta Richmond County Commission convened at 1:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 15, 2014, the Honorable Deke Copenhaver, Mayor, presiding. PRESENT: Hons. Lockett, Guilfoyle, Mason, D. Smith, Williams, Fennoy, Johnson, Davis and G. Smith, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. Mr. Mayor: Lady and gentlemen, in the interest of time I’ll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Mr. MacKenzie. 1.LEGAL MEETING A.Pending and potential litigation B.Real estate C.Personnel Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to go into a closed meeting to discuss pending and potential litigation, real estate and personnel. Mr. Mayor: Can I get a motion to that effect? Mr. Guilfoyle: So move. Mr. D. Smith: Second. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion that’s been made and properly seconded. Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign. Motion carries 9-0. Mr. Mayor: We are in legal. [LEGAL MEETING] Mr. Mayor: Sorry for the technical difficulties but I’ll go ahead and call the legal meeting back to order. We’ll turn it over to Mr. MacKenzie. 2.Motion to authorize execution by the Mayor of the affidavit of compliance with Georgia’s Open Meeting Act. Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to execute the closed meeting affidavit. Mr. Lockett: So move. Mr. Williams: Second. 1 Mr. Mayor: We have a motion that’s been made and properly seconded. Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign. Motion carries 9-0. Mr. Mayor: Mr. MacKenzie. Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to approve a resolution authorizing the settlement of all claims in Richmond County State Court styled Gary Hom v. Augusta Richmond County, File No. 2012-RCSC-1053 in the amount of $9,000 and authorizing the Administrator to disburse this amount. Mr. Guilfoyle: So move. Mr. Lockett: Second. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion that’s been made and properly seconded. Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign. Motion carries 9-0. Mr. Mayor: Mr. MacKenzie. Mr. MacKenzie: That’s all I have, sir, unless there’s a motion regarding a personnel issue. Mr. Williams: I’ve got one motion, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: I’d like to make a motion that we approve the increase of salary for Ms. Geri Sams to $113,000 and eliminate the Print Shop position in Procurement and the funds be, an increase be given with the condition that the Legal Department sit down with Ms. Sams and do those things – Mr. Mayor: All releases? Mr. Williams: All releases. Mr. Lockett: Second. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion that’s been made and properly seconded. Commissioner Davis. 2 Ms. Davis: Mr. Mayor, I’d like to make a substitute motion, please. I’d like to make a motion to move this motion to the next committee for further discussion as far as elimination of positions and further information from Ms. Bryant as far as the pay increase. Mr. Mayor: That’s a substitute motion. Mr. G. Smith: Second. Mr. Mayor: Okay, we have a -- Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We have had conversations for weeks, in facts months and maybe even years on this same issue. We were looking for a funding source and we found that and I don’t see where taking it back to committee to bring it back again for two more weeks (inaudible). I need to know the importance of that, what is the significance of that. Can somebody share that with me? Ms. Allen, anybody. Mr. Mayor: Well, I think, Ms. Davis, would you like to share your position? Ms. Davis: I just strictly wanted to have more discussion in committee, that’s all. Mr. Williams: Okay. I’m just trying to find out the significance of it. We’ve known about this disparity for a while and we’ve been trying to resolve this. We’re at the point now where we’re ready to do this and I just can’t see the reason for taking it back for two weeks. If there was some information for you to get, the HR Director, I think, could get that for you if she has that before we leave I would think, but I just can’t see the significance but we can vote it up or down, however you want to do it. Mr. Mayor: And, Commissioner Williams, before I address Commissioner Mason, I just want to say publicly that I am in favor of your motion. Commissioner Mason. Mr. Mason: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. At this time taking everything into consideration, I would hope we all would prevent any embarrassment to employees, any embarrassment to the Commission as a whole and take into consideration at this time all requests that have been made because we do have the ability to control that amongst the nine commissioners that are sitting here and certainly, you know, I’m prepared to vote if that’s the way that we’re going to go, but I would certainly wish that we would take into consideration the requests that are being made and the personnel that we’re discussing here to prevent any type of embarrassment or anything like that to come to the forefront. Thank you. Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Fennoy. Mr. Fennoy: Yes. Ms. Allen, is Ms. Bryant here to answer questions that commissioners might have? Ms. Allen: Yes, sir, she is. She’s in the chamber. 3 Mr. Mayor: Okay, good point and if it’s, like to hear from Ms. Bryant. Ms. Bryant: Good afternoon, commissioners, Mayor. Is it possible that I could make a request that we have all the information that we have so far but because this is (inaudible) a particular employee is if it’s appropriate and proper that we could discuss this in legal. Mr. MacKenzie: This is not necessarily something that can be done if we didn’t already have a legal today. But you can have another one now or you could have one at the conclusion of the regular commission meeting. Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Williams. Mr. Williams: We just had this legal meeting and we just discussed it. We just didn’t decide to do this out of the blue. What we probably need from you is I think Ms. Davis might have some direct questions that she wanted to be able to ask but I know we already discussed it many, many times. Mr. Mayor: Okay, does anybody on the commission, Ms. Davis, would you like to ask -- Ms. Davis: I believe the funding source has been identified for this position, correct? Ms. Bryant: Correct. Ms. Davis: And will you go through that with us please? Ms. Bryant: That funding source is going to come from her budget, her permanent budget. Ms. Davis: Okay, the elimination of a position. And that won’t have any direct effect on the department? Ms. Bryant: (inaudible). Ms. Davis: That’s my concern. We’ve been talking about not being able to give cost of living increases and this has nothing at all to do with the person or this position. I’m just talking across the board and we’ve discussed elimination of positions in the past as well so I wanted to go through what positions are available in our government that possibly, I mean can each department head go through and identify positions in their department that aren’t necessary to run their department like this and it can help solve some other funding issues we may have? Ms. Bryant: If there are positions that can be eliminated that are not filled at this point and there’s no potential for the positions to be filled, then that would be something that would be at the discretion of the department director depending on their department needs. Ms. Davis: That was the information I wanted to discuss next week or next committee meeting. 4 Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Smith. Mr. D. Smith: Ms. Bryant, last time we discussed this, you told us that some Procurement Directors have the DBE Office located within Procurement, is that correct? Ms. Bryant: That’s correct. Mr. D. Smith: What was your recommendation on that for this government? Ms. Bryant: The recommendation was to include the DBE function under Procurement. Mr. D. Smith: Thank you. Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Fennoy. Mr. Fennoy: Yes, I’ve got a question. Could you, and I guess answer, is it possible that the HR Director can give us a justification without us going into legal? Mr. MacKenzie: You don’t have to go into legal to discuss personnel if it fits within the requirements of the Georgia Open Meetings Act. You have that ability to do that. We can certainly ask questions in a public forum if it’s the will of the body to do that. Mr. Fennoy: Ms. Bryant, you brought to the commissioners a recommendation concerning the Procurement Department. Would you repeat what your recommendation and justification is? Ms. Bryant: Are you talking about the salary or the – Mr. Mayor: The salary, just the salary. Mr. Bryant: The salary was, my recommendation was in order to satisfy the salary inequity was to bring the Procurement Director’s salary to $113 which was based on the benchmark of (inaudible). Mr. Mayor: $113,000. Ms. Bryant: Yes, it’s been a long time. $113,000. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Commissioner Lockett. Mr. Lockett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The incumbent is fully qualified and has performed in an exemplary manner for many, many years. The incumbent is (inaudible) underpaid when you want to put her salary, the salary in line with the other directors of like education and experience. My concern, well, I have a couple of concerns. One is I believe in fairness and for those of us that say, well, we don’t have the money, so if that’s the case the 5 funding source has been identified and I’m really afraid that if we don’t go ahead on and do what’s right, and what’s right is approve the request that the position salary be increased, we’re going to end up paying more money and we’re going to have more negative publicity when this goes to court. This has already been in the paper about the reason why this particular person hasn’t had a pay increase. The former Administrator had documentation to grant this pay increase but was afraid of the queries that he would get from the governing body so he refused to do anything. So I think it’s time for us to step up to the plate and do what’s right and let’s give the media something else to talk about. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mayor: And I’m just going to say and I’m going to echo in a resounding tone as you guys have heard from me over here, we need to be discussing how to prepare for growth for the future and the longer we spend on personnel issues the less time we are able to spend on that. Thank you, Ms. Bryant. We have the substitute motion on the floor. Madam Clerk, as a point of clarity, would you read back the substitute motion? The Deputy Clerk: Yes, sir. That was to move this item back to the next committee meeting and to receive further information from Ms. Bryant. Mr. Mayor: Okay, commissioners will now vote by the substitute sign of voting. Mr. Fennoy, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Lockett vote No. Mr. Williams abstains. Motion fails 5-3-1. Mr. Mayor: Okay, Madam Clerk, we have a primary motion on the floor. Could you read that back for the point of clarity? The Deputy Clerk: Yes, sir, that was to approve the salary increase for the Procurement Director to $113,000 with a funding source of the elimination of a position in the Print Shop. Mr. Lockett: A roll call vote, please. The Deputy Clerk: And there was also a condition on that that she execute a release. Mr. Mayor: Yes, ma’am. Okay, we now have a roll call vote. Roll Call Vote Ms. Davis: No, ma’am, I still would like more information on other positions. Mr. Fennoy Yes Mr. Guilfoyle No Mr. Jackson Out Mr. Johnson Yes Mr. Lockett Yes Mr. Mason Yes Mr. D. Smith No 6 Mr. G. Smith No Mr. Williams Yes Motion fails 5-4. Mr. Williams: Madam Clerk, would you put that back on the agenda for the next Commission meeting, not a workshop. The Deputy Clerk: Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor: Okay, with no further business to come before the body, we stand adjourned. [MEETING ADJOURNED] Nancy W. Morawski Deputy Clerk of Commission CERTIFICATION: I, Lena J. Bonner, Clerk of Commission, hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Called Meeting of the Augusta Richmond County Commission held on April 15, 2014. ________________________ Clerk of Commission 7