By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            First-year Williston City Manager Jackie Gorman earns $77,500 annually as the city’s top administrator and she appears poised to earn even more based on the high marks given to her in the city council’s annual evaluation, but the bigger question Tuesday wasn’t her job performance rating, but whether mayor’s evaluation of Gorman should carry any weight.

            Spotlight’s review of the council evaluations shows Mayor Jerry Robinson may have given Gorman higher grades than any council member, but in Williston’s form of municipal government, the mayor doesn’t have a vote on the council and isn’t one of Gorman’s bosses, so the council decided the points he gave Gorman on his written evaluation won’t be counted in her overall score.

            His evaluation will be submitted to Gorman separately and won’t have any bearing on the pay raise she gets, or doesn’t get, nor will it influence the council’s opinion of her job performance. The mayor’s evaluation of the city manager is separate and apart from the council member evaluations.

            Robinson initially questioned whether his score had been included in the city council’s overall point totals.

            “Was mine included?” he said.

            “I don’t believe so,” said Council President Debra Jones.

            “Why not?” asked Robinson.

            “Because yours doesn’t count in the score,” Jones said.

            “It was in the last city manager’s evaluation. It’s definitely also in the city clerk’s evaluation,” Robinson said.

            Jones asked the council members to give her guidance on whether Robinson’s score should be counted as part of the council’s point totals for Gorman.

            “I didn’t believe it was supposed to be,” she said.

            “If there were any raises or anything like that, I’m out of it,” Robinson said.

            Councilwoman Darfeness Hinds asked whether Robinson was one of Gorman’s bosses.

            Robinson said he wasn’t her boss.

            “If he is not, then he should probably not be involved in her evaluation,” Hinds said.

            Ultimately the council sided with Hinds and Jones, saying Robinson was entitled to submit an evaluation of Gorman but it would be separate and apart from the council’s evaluations. Jones said she felt it was important for Gorman to receive the mayor’s evaluation so she knows how he feels about her job performance.

            It was agreed by all that Robinson could not vote on pay raises for Gorman. He also can’t vote on hiring city managers or city clerks, nor does he have a vote in firing them. The council has agreed in past discussions that the mayor can join in discussions about the city manager and clerk and other matters that come before the council. He just doesn’t have a vote under the city’s charter.    

            The process of evaluating the city manager took on a different look this year after Gorman created the position of human resources director and won council approval to hire Deanna Nelson as the city’s first official HR director. Others had held the position briefly. Nelson was given authority to tweak the evaluation forms. She wrote a rule that says pay raises are determined by the points scored in the evaluation. Total points will determine the percentage of increase, at least in theory. Ultimately the full council determines the size of Gorman’s raise, if any.

            Council members also have the authority to terminate her services, which is nothing new.  All employers retain that authority. Gorman has a four-year contract with the city, but she could still be fired if three members of the board vote to terminate her. That seems unlikely with her high scores on the evaluations, but anything can happen in government and politics.

            Jones must wait for the full council to meet and review the recommendation she makes on whether Gorman merits a raise and if she does, how much. Nelson will help her crunch the numbers from the evaluations and assist with the recommendation.

            The first-year city manager received an overall rating from the council as having “exceeded job standards” as manager, a high rating, but she did receive some low scores in individual job performance categories. There were a number of different categories for rating Gorman. Council members could score from 1 to 5 in those areas. Gorman received four “2’s,” from council members, meaning “the city manager’s work performance is inadequate and inferior to the quality of performance required by the job” in those specific areas. One of the low grades was in fiscal management but her overall scores in fiscal management were high. The other three scores of “2” were in intergovernmental affairs, which includes working with other governments. But there were no negative comments associated with any of the low numbers.

            Fifty-nine times Gorman earned a rating of “5” from council members, meaning “the city manager’s work performance is consistently outstanding when compared to the quality and excellence expected on the job” in those specific categories. She earned 5’s across the board in board evaluations, but her biggest scores were in her relationship with the city council in implementing its policies and programs. She got 13 scores of 5 in council relations. In fiscal management, she received ten scores of 5, but she also got one score of “2.”

            The council talked about possibly requiring council members in the future to explain why they scored the manager “2” in some areas. The general thought process was that the city manager, or city clerk for that matter, can’t learn or improve if they don’t know why council members gave them a low number grade in a particular area related to job performance.

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City of Williston Regular Meeting January 4, 2022; Posted January 7, 2022