On Monday, the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors tasked County Administrator Ralph Billingsley with putting together job descriptions and salary recommendations for two new positions, setting up a possible showdown between Board President Harry Sanders and District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks.
Sanders advocates creating a new position of IT specialist for the county, which would combine IT services for the sheriff’s department, tax assessors office and the county’s offices and courts. The proposal was tabled at the supervisor’s last meeting when Brooks strongly objected to a move he felt had been decided in advance among the board’s three white supervisors — Sanders, Bill Brigham and John Holliman.
There has been an impasse among white and black board members after the board voted along racial lines to raise the salary of road manager Ronnie Burns in January. It continued at the last meeting last Monday, as District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks and District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith, who are black, continued to accuse Board President Harry Sanders, District 2 Supervisor Bill Brigham and District 3 Supervisor John Holliman — all of whom are white — of not including them in the board’s plans.
Billingsley reintroduced the IT specialist matter at Monday’s meeting.
The work that the IT specialist would handle is currently being performed on a part-time basis by a sheriff’s department deputy and a tax assessor’s office employee, while the remaining IT services are being performed on a hourly basis by Tim Heard of the Golden Triangle Development Partnership. Billingsley said last week the county’s payment to Heard for those services are approximately $15,000 per year.
Brooks asked that Billingsley prepare the job description and salary recommendation before the board took any vote on the new position.
“I have no problem taking a look at this, but I would like to know what the job would be and what kind of pay we’re talking about. Right now, we just don’t have anything to look at.”
The board voted unanimously on Brooks’ proposal for Billingsley to provide that information at its March 15 meeting.
Later, as he has at prior meetings, Brooks asked again that the board consider adding a third employee to the county’s Emergency Management Department, which currently consists of director Cindy Lawrence and a secretary.
Brooks said all other county departments have an assistant, who has the proper training to assume the job in the event the department head is out sick or otherwise unavailable.
After Sanders suggested that the county look into the staffing of other counties, Brooks again raised his objection.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying in these last few meetings,” Brooks said. “Harry, when you bring up something you want, we’re supposed to just go along with it. But when I suggest something, you bring up all these stipulations. It always has to be your way.”
Brooks’ proposal that Billingsley prepare a job description and salary recommendation for the position passed, 4-1, with Sanders voting no.
“I just want you to note, Leroy, that John, Bill and I didn’t vote together on this,” Sanders said. Brooks and District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith had said in previous meeting that the three always voted together, which they felt was evidence of collusion against them as the black members of the board.
On an otherwise light agenda, the Board accepted the bid for work on two bridges on Nashville Ferry Road. The bids were opened at the Feb. 29 board meeting and the board awarded the contract to Tanner Construction of Louisville which had the low bid of $1,320,346.20
The board also set a public hearing for April 4 on a proposal to end county services on a portion of True Grit Road.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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