City Council President Nancy Wininger is open to clarifying some aspects of the city manager contract.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Williston City Council President Nancy Wininger agreed Tuesday night to approach City Manager Scott Lippmann on behalf of the board to find out if he would be willing to amend his contract.
Portions of Lippmann’s contract are being interpreted in different ways by council members, particularly regarding how he gets pay raises, but the contract says any contract changes would have to be negotiated with the city manager.
“Some things need to be made a little clearer,” Wininger said.
Councilman Charles Goodman didn’t agree.
“It seems real clear to me. To other people it didn’t,” he said.
Lippmann could decline to cooperate, in which case there is little the council could do to rewrite his contract. The council could terminate him, but it would require a super majority – a 4-1 vote – to remove him from the job.
He is taking time off until Monday.
The super majority requirement is intended to protect the city manager from being easily removed from office by a simple majority of the board and it’s one of the issues Goodman wants to address by changing the contract.
Former councilwoman Debra Jones, who attended the council meeting and served for many years on the board, said the two previous city managers both had contracts requiring a 4-1 vote to terminate them.
Goodman told the council he wouldn’t mind keeping the 4-1 requirement if Lippmann’s contract comes up for renewal every three years and could be terminated by a majority vote, but as it stands now Lippmann is employed for an “indefinite term.” Goodman doesn’t think the contract should go on forever.
The portion of the contract dealing with the process of giving Lippmann raises says any adjustment to his salary “shall be made by lawful Council resolutions.”
Councilman Charles Goodman expressed interest in rewriting several parts of the city manager contract.
Wininger said the language is vague. She would like to see it clarified. As it stands now, she interprets the language in his contract to say that if the council approves the overall city budget by resolution, and the budget contains money for Lippmann’s raises, the raises are legal.
But Goodman said the real intent of that paragraph was to require the city council to specifically approve Lippmann’s raises by a separate resolution voted on by the entire board. He said that wasn’t done with many of the raises Lippmann’s received. He is willing to discuss clarifying the language.
The board has already reduced Lippmann’s salary from around $82,000 to $75,000 to strip him of the pay raises the board says were not approved by the full council. But there may not be enough votes to terminate Lippmann on a 4-1 vote if it ever comes to that point. The council isn’t discussing an actual termination. The council discussed Lippmann’s contract in front of him during the meeting without actually saying much of anything to the city manager about his contract, or asking whether he would consider amending it. They gave that chore to Wininger.
Other aspects of Lippmann’s contract are generating conversation. There is no specific time set in the contract for his annual evaluation. The council appeared to agree that future evaluations should occur around the anniversary date of the contract – Dec. 13, but Mayor Jerry Robinson said Lippmann’s evaluation should occur sooner than later this year.
City Manager Scott Lippmann reads through his contract as council members discuss its contents.
There is also no requirement for him to score well on his performance evaluations.
When Lippmann was originally hired on Dec. 13, 2012, the contract provided for a $2,500 raise on May 13 of that year if he received a score of 3 on his performance evaluation. He was eligible for another $2,500 raise on Oct. 1, 2013 upon receiving a score of least 3 on his performance evaluation. He received both raises, which increased his salary to $75,000.
But there is no scoring requirement for any future raises.
Wininger told board members they shouldn’t rely on her to communicate what she learns in her Friday meetings with Lippmann. She said they can talk to Lippmann themselves and get the same information. Wininger said she can’t pass the information along to the board unless it’s in a council meeting due to the restrictions imposed by the state Sunshine Law.
Wininger has been critical of the Sunshine Law even though she said she understands why it was passed by the Florida Legislature. The law prohibits elected boards and their appointed advisory boards from discussing business with each other outside of a public meeting. It is intended to force public officials to discuss official business in a public setting rather doing it privately out earshot of citizens. She said it frustrates her when she can’t talk to council members about matters like Lippmann’s contract except in a public meeting.
Goodman said the council relies on Wininger as the council president to communicate with Lippmann. He said if every council member and the mayor spent an hour with Lippmann every week it would rob the city manager of a full work day every week.
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City of Williston Regular Meeting October 22, 2019; Posted October 23, 2019
