Mayor Beatrice Roberts attended the July 20 council meeting wearing a face mask. She closed Town Hall due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in Bronson, she said. The fire chief took temperatures of visitors coming into the council meeting, but the forehead thermometer didn’t work properly. It showed everyone had a high fever.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Bronson Town Council members have literally discussed employee pay raises for hours this year but thus far nothing has been accomplished in the way of increasing worker pay.
Clerk Shirley Miller resigned effective June 12 and has been gone from Town Hall for more than a month, and in her absence, no one has taken responsibility for doing employee evaluations.
The town council is developing a budget for the coming year.
The evaluations are generally done in July as a first step toward settling who gets raises and how much, but with Miller gone and Deputy Clerk Melisa Cook doing her own job and Miller’s job, Cook said she is swamped with work.
Mayor Beatrice Roberts, who was given additional powers in March by a governor’s executive order related to the coronavirus outbreak, may well have to do the evaluations in the absence of a clerk, but the council hasn’t discussed whether she should.
Roberts was called for comment Monday but didn’t return the call.
Under the town’s current form of government, the mayor has the authority to supervise all the department heads.
Blanket Raise?
The council has talked in general terms about the need for an employee pay raise and several council members have indicated there is money in the budget for raises, but if the council sticks to its established policy, someone will have to evaluate employees before raises are given. The town budget must be adopted in late September.
Or the council could vote to give a blanket across the board raise without employee evaluations. There isn’t unanimous support for a blanket raise of any type.
Resident Elijah Williams, a frequent commenter at council meeting tried to kick-start the raises by imploring council members to give employees additional pay.
“Melisa and Nikki (Keller) are overworked,” Williams said.
“No one has gotten a raise yet,” Roberts said. “It’s on the agenda.”
Discussion of the raise was on the July 20 agenda but nothing was decided. It was also discussed at length in a budget workshop the next day.
“We’re talking about this time and time again,” Partin said at the regular council meeting.
Partin said the town’s wages are running below average across the board.
“I think we have the money. It’s been an ongoing conversation,” he said.
Weeks said he has no problem giving raises, “If they deserve it,” but he added, “I think everyone needs a raise. They’re all hardworking.”
The council will meet again on Monday, August 3, and perhaps decide who will do the employee evaluations in the absence of the clerk or if evaluations are needed this year.
Hiring City Manager
Council members appear to be headed in the direction of hiring a city manager instead of a clerk. Council members Berlon Weeks, Jason Hunt, and Robert Partin favor going forward with creating the city manager position to replace the clerk as the town’s top administrator. Roberts and Councilman Aaron Edmondson aren’t supporting the idea of switching to a city manager.
Weeks distributed a questionnaire at the July 20 council meeting asking council members to list what type of qualifications and attributes they would expect in a city manager and qualities they would consider desirable. Council members were asked to forward those questionnaires to Jim Hanson of the Florida City and County Management Association or through Weeks to Hanson. Hanson has volunteered to help guide Bronson in the selection of a city manager, something the town has never done before.
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Town of Bronson Regular Meeting July 20, 2020; Posted July 27, 2020
