By REID TUCKER
Figures provided by the DeFuniak Springs Finance Department indicate that the city will be responsible for a total payout of approximately $53,874 to former City Manager Sara Bowers, who resigned earlier this month.
That amount represents not only three months’ severance pay, which comes to an estimated $19,596, but also $10,533 and $14,861, respectively, for the 258 hours of vacation time and ¼ of the 1,454 hours of eligible sick leave Bowers accumulated since taking the position in 2012. Additionally, the city will have to pay $8,082 in benefits ranging from Medicare to dental insurance as well as $802 in taxes-on-leave payouts. Though none of these amounts are set in stone, Finance Director Tom Brown referred to them as being solid “ballpark figures” with regard to the separation and release agreement approved by the City Council at its March 28 meeting.
All this came to light in the course of a statement made by Councilwoman Janie Griffith at the City Council’s April 11 meeting, when she explained to the other board members and the public the reasoning behind her vote against – the lone nay vote – accepting Bowers’ resignation. Griffith contended that, while she did not disagree with Bowers’ resignation, she felt there should have been two distinct motions on the subject. Ideally, Griffith would liked to have seen a motion to accept or deny Bowers’ resignation and another to either accept or deny the terms of the release agreement, though in the end the Council returned a majority decision in favor of the resignation and the release agreement all in one go.
Griffith also felt as though the Council had not had time to review the entirety of the release agreement as it was delivered to the board members the Friday before Bowers tendered her resignation at the March 28 meeting. Griffith then moved to rescind the “all-inclusive” motion made and voted on at the previous regular meeting and to have new votes on each separate item, but the motion to that effect died for lack of a second.
Even then the matter wasn’t settled, as some members of the audience crammed into the council chambers spoke against the whole process, conflating City Attorney Clayton Adkinson’s preparation of the separation and release agreement as a conflict of interests. Adkinson responded by explaining that he was not directed by Bowers as to the terms of the agreement and merely wrote a proposal based on her desire to resign, nor did he advise her during the formulation of the agreement.
DeFuniak Springs residents J.B. Hillard and Mary Burns questioned whether Adkinson should charge the city for his time spent writing the proposed agreement as he was not directed to do so by the City Council. Councilmen Mac Carpenter and Kermit Wright remained unswayed, saying they were “very comfortable” with the city’s legal counsel preparing the agreement and billing the city for his work.
In another matter related to the ongoing city manager conundrum, the Council members returned a unanimous vote in favor of raising interim City Manager Tillman Mears’ salary to match the $40.826 paid per hour to a full city manager for the duration of his time in that capacity. This pay raise will last until a new city manager is hired and in place, and not solely for the 90-day term of the city’s severance-pay obligations to Bowers.
The final major item on the agenda was continued discussion about the Council’s position on the alternate routes for U.S. 331 proposed by the Florida Department of Transportation. The board had assigned the task of talking to FDOT officials to Mears, and he reported to the members that simply opposing “corridor two,” which cuts through the east end of the municipal airport and cuts off U.S. Highway 90, was not enough. Making its stance on the issue clear, the Council members adopted a resolution supporting “corridor one,” which mostly leaves U.S. Highway 90 as-is.