Last Tuesday, the majority of Town Council voted in favor of appointing Hal Mason to serve as the Town Administrator.
Hal Mason had a long career in local government in North Carolina before coming to Hanahan, where he served as Town Administrator for five years.
When I ran for Mayor, I explained that I planned to hire an experienced and professional Town Administrator. I explained that I would continue to teach at The Citadel, and would be a part-time Mayor.
When the Clark administration set the salaries for Mayor and Council in late 2007, there was a report suggesting that if the Town had an Administrator and the Mayor served part time, then the proper pay for the Mayor would be $15,000 per year. If, on the other hand, the Town did without an administrator, then with the Mayor directing the day-to-day operations of the Town, the proper pay would be $35,000. Mayor Clark chose to be a full time Mayor, accept $35,000 per year, and do without a Town administrator.
However, the Town hired a Planning consultant--Roy DeHaven. He was paid $60,000 per year and was on duty at Town Hall during the morning. The duties of this "planning consultant" included everything--Planning, Building, Budgeting, Code Enforcement and Public Works.
Soon after I became Mayor, Roy DeHaven was let go. And so, the Town reduced expenditures by $60,000 per year. Mayor and Council are free to accept only part of the permitted salary, and so, I reduced my salary to $15,000 per year. That saved $20,000 in salary expense.
It was that $80,000 of annual expense that I planned to allocate to paying for an official Town Administrator. Rather than having a "Planning Consultant" who played the role of a Town Administrator who was only here in the morning but delegated almost nothing to our staff, we would have a full time Town Administrator.
The current budget has $30,000 devoted to Town Administrator salary. That is much less than $80,000. First, at best, I hoped to have a Town Administrator hired for January, so $30,000 would cover $60,000 per year until the end of June. I realized that it might be necessary to pay more than that to hire the right person. (While some part time administrators earn less, most earn much more.) Still, I didn't want to have the maximum I was willing to offer right in the budget for every candidate for the job to see. If necessary, I realized that I might have to return to Council to ask for a budget adjustment.
I have agreed to pay Hal Mason a salary of $65,000 per year. Because he is coming at the beginning of April, there are sufficient funds to pay his salary for the rest of the year without any budget amendment.
What about the $80,000? Are we saving $15,000? Unfortunately, no. Additional payroll costs, including taxes and benefits, are substantial for all of our employees, including our new Town Administrator. (There were no additional payroll costs for the "planning consultant" because Roy DeHaven wasn't an employee of the Town. He was a consultant.) The total expense is more than $80,000 per year, and the remainder is just covered by the reduction in payroll expense for the Mayor. Because my salary is smaller, the payroll taxes and retirement contributions the Town must make for me are smaller than they were for Mayor Clark.
Do we need a Town Administrator? We have been able to operate without one. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Councilman Leonard Blank, who has spent many hours at Town Hall, helping our former planner, James Hacket, step into his new role as Planning Director. And most of all, to Councilman Carter McMillan, (currently Mayor Pro-tem,) who is almost always at Town Hall, and has done a tremendous amount of work in a variety of areas, but especially with Public Works.
Still, it is my judgement that substantial improvements in Town operations are possible. And I believe that Hal Mason is the man to make it happen.
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