City Commission votes 4-1 to give city manager a raise

By Cindy Jo Ayers

In a 4-1 vote the Trenton City Commissioners voted on Tuesday evening to give City Manager Taylor Brown a raise.
When Brown was hired in April 2010 there was discussion on what he should be paid. Brown requested a salary of $47,500 and the commissioners decided at the time that they were willing to pay Brown $45,000. At that time they told Brown that they would revisit his salary in one year.
At the June 14th Trenton City Commission meeting, Commissioner Randy Rutter requested that the subject of City Manager Taylor Brown’s salary be added to the next meeting’s agenda.
Rutter told the other commissioners at the June 28th meeting that he thought that Brown was due the salary increase to $47,500.
“I am very, very pleased with his work and the direction we (the city) are taking,” Rutter said.
Brown had turned in a report to the commissioners at the last meeting outlining his accomplishments. In the report, Brown stated that he along with the help of the city staff had cut $200,000 out of the budget, without laying off any employees and without sacrificing service to the public.
Commissioner Tim Kinsey stated that he felt a raise of 3 to 3.5 percent was fair.
Rutter reminded the commissioners that when former City Manager Jered Ottenwess left he was being paid $52,000 after five years on the job.
Mayor Glen Thigpen told the commissioners that he felt if they could not give a raise to the entire staff they should not give one to Brown.
Commissioner Marcia Hellams said that she felt discussion about Brown’s salary had nothing to do with what other employees would be paid.
Decisions on employee raises are made during the budgeting process, which starts next month.
After much discussion, a final vote was made by the entire board as they were all in attendance. The commissioners were all in favor of the additional salary for Brown with the exception of Thigpen who voted no.
In other commission meeting news, there was discussion on the removal of an oak tree next to the home’s of Kathy Powers Pipkins and Eleanor Asbell. The tree is on city property and recently split. Both ladies had damage to their homes due to the tree falling and they requested during the June 14 meeting that the city remove it as soon as possible. During that meeting the commissioners took the best bid, which was from Langston Tree Service of Chiefland.
City Attorney David M. Lang cautioned the commissioners that they needed to make sure that Langston has workers compensation insurance. As it turned out three of the four tree services that turned in bids for the job did not have this insurance. Only Gaston’s Tree Service in Gainesville had the insurance. Gaston’s bid was over $1,000 more than Langston’s bid.
City Manager Taylor Brown stated that several of the local small businesses that the city uses often do not have workers compensation insurance. Brown went on to say these smaller locally owned businesses are usually less expensive than the larger firms from out of the county. He went on to say that he hated to see the city pay more for the same work. Brown told the commissioners that he had contacted the city’s insurance carrier through the Florida League of Cities and their representative said that the city could pay the insurance for each time they used one of these small local companies. On the day of the meeting, Brown was waiting on a formula sheet from the insurance company to compare how much the city would pay for the insurance coverage plus the lowest bid, compared to the higher bid.
Commissioner Tim Kinsey made a motion to proceed within the week with whichever bid works out to be the least expensive for the city. All agreed that the tree needed to be removed as soon as possible.
The commissioners also approved the sending of two thank you letters to Lancaster Correctional Institution and the Gilchrist County Commission. The letters will be sent in appreciation of the work that an inmate crew and the County Road Department crew did recently after severe weather caused trees to fall on several streets in Trenton.