City Council President Nancy Wininger listens to Councilman Charles Goodman’s concerns about the city manager’s pay raises.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Williston City Councilman Charles Goodman Tuesday questioned why Council President Nancy Wininger had signed a form giving a pay raise for City Manager Scott Lippmann without full council approval, setting off a testy exchange between the two.
Wininger said she did nothing wrong and resented Goodman’s “combative and uncivil” approach to raising the issue in a previous meeting of the council, but Goodman wasn’t fazed by her comments. He said he was on a mission to uncover facts and correct problems that resulted in Lippmann receiving raises that hadn’t been approved by the full council.
The city council reduced Lippmann’s annual salary to $75,000 at the previous meeting, erasing the raises that were given without full council approval. A majority of council members were opposed, however, to forcing Lippmann to repay money from the raises.
Goodman said it wasn’t easy digging out the facts. When he approached Lippmann about the raises he didn’t get the information he was looking for and was forced to research public records to find documents indicating the city manager had received several raises, including two during his council presidency that he had not signed and knew nothing about.
He said Wininger actually signed a personnel action form given to her by Lippmann authorizing a raise in pay that hadn’t been approved by the council. He questioned why she signed the form, he said, but more importantly he wanted to establish a more transparent process that would end the era of Lippmann receiving raises without full council approval.
Goodman said he wasn’t blaming Wininger for giving the raise. He was blaming Lippmann. He said Lippmann knew full well how the charter was written and how raises were given to the two constitutional officers, himself and the city clerk, but he persuaded the council president to go along with the raise.
“I feel you have befriended (Lippmann)– as a result of that – when he brought you that document, I do not believe you meant any bad thing; I blame the city manager for bringing you the document; my concern is that you signed, not that you had any illegal intent; my goal is simply to try to make you aware that the rest of us are part of it and when the city manager brings you such a document like that, that has not been before the council, you need to step back and say, okay, I met with the city manager on a regular basis; he gives me lots of good information; he helps me make good choices for the city, but I need to consult with the rest of the council,” Goodman said.
City Manager Scott Lippmann remains quiet as two council members discuss his pay raises.
Goodman said he was trying to impress upon all the members of the council that the council president’s duties, aside from being one of five is simply to implement the will of the entire council, and signing documents without the will of the entire council isn’t acceptable.
At Goodman’s request, the council agreed to place an item on the next meeting agenda to review the city manager’s contract, which in the minds of some council members doesn’t say specifically how his pay is raised. The contract appears to state that the full council must approve a pay raise for the city manager by resolution. The contract also says Lippmann can only be fired by a 4-1 vote of the council.
Wininger said there has been confusion about how Lippmann is supposed to get raises and she reads the contract differently than Goodman and perhaps others. She said she welcomes a council reviewing the contract and clearing up how Lippmann should receive raises. She wondered if the raise should be given during evaluations of the manager.
Wininger said she said she meets with Lippmann every Friday to find out what is going on in the city. She said he handed her a form at one of their meetings, and since she grown to trust him professionally, she signed it without thinking there was anything amiss. She said she saw money in the budget for a raise and didn’t think anything about it. She thought the council was okay with the raise until Goodman said later he wasn’t in favor of it.
“I can say Charles Goodman when you were council president there were two raises (to Lippmann) you did not know about. When I see that, I say that’s okay so this must be okay, and that’s not an excuse for what I have done; what I’m saying is, since there is no training (for city council president), we learn as we go,” Wininger said.
Responding to one of Lippmann’s requests, Wininger promised never to let a document slip through again that should be reviewed by the full council. But she had one request of her own for Goodman.
“Since you have brought it up from the last meeting I would hope there would never be as combative and uncivil a discussion as there was that night (at the previous council meeting). I hope we have both learned a lesson. Do I have your assurance?” Wininger said.
Goodman said he had learned lessons at the previous meeting, and he would never bring it up again as long as he could get answers to the questions he was raising.
Wininger said she had done nothing improper.
“I would never do anything as a council president or a council member that I thought was illegal, immoral or unethical and I have learned a lesson about signing documents. I hope you have learned a lesson about civility,” Wininger said.
Goodman later apologized to Wininger for his tone at the previous meeting, saying she apparently was offended by it, but in his usual style, Goodman said he didn’t regret raising the issue and wouldn’t shy away from bringing it up again if he felt it was appropriate to do so.
Wininger said there is no formal training to be a city council president or vice president other than courses taken at the Florida League of Cities, which are valuable. She said there is nothing to prepare a city council president for the duties of the position in Williston.
“Unfortunately, sometimes the way we learn – all of our decisions on the council as president and vice president is by trial and error, which is certainly not the intent, of course. You do not want to be in that position, nor do I, nor the council members nor any of the citizens. That isn’t what we want to do. We want to do what our citizens want us to do,” she said.
Goodman had mentioned earlier in the discussion that the Sunshine Law prevented him from discussing with other council members what he had found during his investigation of Lippmann, which forced him to make his findings public at a council meeting. He said that’s how the Sunshine works. Council members aren’t supposed to discuss city business outside of a public meeting.
Wininger agreed with his assessment of the Sunshine Law. She said there have been a million times when she wanted to talk about an issue with her fellow council members, but has always avoided even the appearance of wrongdoing by not socializing with them, or even sitting at the same table.
But Goodman was finished raising questions. He said he was astonished when Lippmann authorized a raise in pay for recently hired City Clerk Latricia Wright when the responsibility for giving her pay raises rests solely with the full council. He said the council has authority to hire and fire only two city employees in the city work force – the city manager and city clerk (and technically the city attorney too). He said Lippmann had no authority to give Wright a raise without council approval.
“The city manager cannot sign a pay authorization for the other constitutional officer who answers to the city council, and yet it was done,” Goodman said.
Goodman said the raises given to both Lippmann and Wright were symptoms of larger problems related to how the city is being administered. He said he didn’t want to bring these problems to the city council, but the only other alternative was to ignore them, which he said he couldn’t do in good conscience.
He said he stood before the council at three budget workshops this year and handed the council a copy of Lippmann’s work contract at two of the workshops. He was raising questions about Lippmann.
“I happen to like him (the city manager), but I have lost a lot of trust,” Goodman said.
City of Williston Regular Meeting October 8, 2019; Posted October 10, 2019
