The names remained the same and so did the titles during Monday’s Lowndes County Board of Supervisors.
The supervisors’ first board meeting of the year dealt almost exclusively with procedural moves related to the start of the county’s new four-year cycle. At 9 a.m., the county’s elected officials were sworn into office followed a board meeting which dealt almost exclusively with appointing non-elected officials and department heads.
All five of the county’s supervisors return after November’s general election. The three supervisors who faced opponents, either in their party primaries or general election or both, easily returned to office, joining District 2 Supervisor Bill Brigham and District 3 Supervisor John Holliman who were not opposed.
The first order of business was to elect a board president and vice president. Board President Harry Sanders was re-elected to his position as was Holliman, the vice president. Both were returned to their positions by a 4-0 vote.
District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks abstained from both votes.
“I think Harry has made a good board president, but I think I would make a better one,” Brooks said, eliciting chuckles from the board members, Brooks included.
Supervisors also re-appointed Ralph Billingsley as county administrator, Bob Calvert and county engineer and state-aid road engineer and Tim Hudson as board attorney.
The only real discussion over appointments came up with the appointment of county road manager Ronnie Burns. After a motion to return Burns to the position had been made and seconded, Sanders offered a substitute motion to retain Burns with a 9.5 percent pay raise to $80,000 annually.
Brooks and District 4 supervisor Jeff Smith objected to that motion.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Brooks said. “I think Ronnie Burns has been the best road manager we’ve had going back many years. But as I look around and see so many other county employees who have worked just as hard, they deserve something, too. I don’t think it’s fair to those other employees.”
Smith said he, too, appreciated Burns’ work as road manager, but said the move to raise his pay should have been something supervisors had time to consider before Monday’s meeting.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Smith said. “This goes back to something I mentioned at the last board meeting. In the past, we’ve had a plan for how we were going to spend our money. This is something that should have been part of our budget process. We are probably going to commit to employee raises at some point. I’d like to see a plan of action for that. Nothing against Ronnie, because I agree he’s done a great job. I would have just liked to have been informed and be able to discuss this first.”
Sanders said he felt raising Burns’ annual salary by $6,960 was justified because it represented no increase in the money budgeted for road department salaries.
“As you know, we had an assistant road manager who left, so the money is there and I think Ronnie deserves the raise,” Sanders said. “Outside of the sheriff’s department, Ronnie’s department is the biggest department in the county. He manages 59 people, the other department heads manage five or so. Plus, he’s on call 24/7. I think he deserve it. He’s done a great job and the way you keep good people is to pay them.”
The motion to re-appoint Burns as road manager with the proposed raise passed, 3-2, with Brooks and Smith voting against the move.
Burns is in his 20th year with the road department and has been road manager since 2008.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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