Gainesville City Commission gives 2.5% raises to Charter Officers, hires Kristen Bryant as permanent City Clerk

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At today’s meeting, the Gainesville City Commission discussed their evaluations of their Charter Officers, gave all the Charter Officers a 2.5% raise, and hired Kristen Bryant as the permanent City Clerk.

Charter Officers’ Annual Performance Evaluations

Human Resources Director Laura Graetz displayed the scores given by each Commissioner to each Charter Officer, saying that one commissioner’s evaluations had arrived just before the meeting and were not in the backup. Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker’s evaluations were not included in the backup, and she did not attend today’s meeting.

The lowest ratings were Duncan-Walker’s 2.50 and 2.83 (“Improvement Needed”) ratings for City Manager Cynthia Curry and City Attorney Dan Nee, respectively. Commissioner Ed Book gave Interim City Clerk Kristen Bryant and Director of Equity & Inclusion Zeriah Folston a 3.83 (“Meets Job Standards”), and Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut gave Bryant a 3.40 (“Meets Job Standards”). A score of 5 indicates that the Charter Officer’s performance is “Outstanding,” and a score of 4 indicates that the performance “Exceeds Job Standards.”

Graetz said the City’s Managerial, Administrative, and Professional (MAP) employees are budgeted to receive a 2.5% merit increase, and other employees received increases between 2.5% and 7.7% (firefighters).

After Mayor Harvey Ward asked for public comment (there was none), Book said he was “very comfortable with our Charter Officers, and I feel like they’re competent, they’re doing a good job and following the direction of both the community and the direction of the commission.” He said, however, that he didn’t support raises, although “I realize they’re already budgeted, and the value may seem small. But I’m concerned about some of the collateral impacts that we may have, depending on what occurs with the [GRU] Authority over the next few months. If they were to take some action in the middle of a fiscal year, those could be devastating for us.”

“I would caution us against waiting and seeing what happens [with the GRU Authority] because I don’t think we will achieve clarity… over the next several months.” – Mayor Harvey Ward

Ward told the Charter Officers, “I deeply appreciate the work that you put into this… More than that, you are each personally and deeply invested in the success of our organization, and I see the work that you do… I would caution us against waiting and seeing what happens [with the GRU Authority] because I don’t think we will achieve clarity… over the next several months… We passed the budget with this in there, and I understand exactly what you’re saying, Commissioner Book. I don’t disagree with you except that I’m not going to vote that way because I really don’t think we’re going to achieve clarity.”

Commissioner Casey Willits said, “I feel like our five Charters are currently kind of all rowing in the same direction as the City, which is good to see… In most situations I would say, yes, we should be a little more cautious about any kind of a raise because we have some questions about our revenue streams this year, potentially. But at the same time, I don’t think it would be wise to predicate someone’s delayed salary increase to Charter Officers that are all working and communicating with the GRU Authority about some of our shared work that we do between General Government and GRU.” He said he supported a 2.5% increase, which is “less than CPI, currently.”

Commissioner Bryan Eastman said he was also comfortable with a 2.5% increase: “This is just the rate of inflation… But I’ve just been incredibly impressed with all of our Charter Officers,… how well everyone has worked together and really pushed the whole organization forward.”

At that point, Ron Rawls entered the chamber, and Ward reopened public comment for him. Rawls said, “In the last year and a half, almost two years… outside forces are trying to attack, for political reasons, our city, and you all have a staff that’s held things together.” He thanked the commissioners for the performance reviews, although “there’s one of you, I just flat out can’t understand what the deal is, but it does represent some of the chaos from the past.”

Willits made a motion to accept the performance evaluations and increase Charter Officers’ pay by 2.5% for FY24, pro-rated for length of service during the evaluation period, and Eastman seconded the motion. Ward split the motion into two votes, anticipating that Book would want to vote against the raise.

The motion to accept the performance evaluations passed unanimously, with Commissioners Cynthia Chestnut and Reina Saco voting remotely and Duncan-Walker absent.

Book said that after considering the range of increases for City employees and hearing what other commissioners had said, he felt better about the 2.5% increase. Commissioners voted unanimously for the raise, with Chestnut and Saco voting remotely and Duncan-Walker absent.

After the vote, Curry thanked each commissioner for meeting with her and providing input on how she can improve; she said some commissioners also asked her for input on how they could improve. She said, however, that she had not been able to meet with the commissioner who provided an evaluation just before the meeting (Duncan-Walker, who rated Curry at a 2.50) and added, “I just wanted to put that on the record because I had a very different experience with everybody else here on the dais.” Regarding the comments in Duncan-Walker’s evaluation, she said, “One of the comments that was made was around gun violence prevention and the fact that I’ve committed to create an Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the Office of the City Manager. At no time did I make that commitment, and that is not something that I am pursuing. I do not follow the lead of one city commissioner; I follow the lead of four.”

Curry added, “In the four decades that I have been working in government… it has always been an interesting struggle, I’ll put it that way, in terms of how far you push in as a Commissioner and how far you push back as a Manager… I needed to say that, in one particular instance, I’ve never seen the kind of interface push-in, in terms of trying to influence staff. I have pushed back, and I’m putting that on the record, but I’ve pushed back in a way that I think is appropriate and respectful.”

Chestnut said, “The Charter Officers works for all of the commissioners, not just one… And I think we have to be very, very careful as we move forward, that sometimes one person may want to move an agenda. But we must always remember you cannot move that agenda without four [sic] people voting with you… I would ask that the Manager’s comments be recorded in their entirety in the minutes so that we can always look back on that and remember our different roles.”

Duncan-Walker’s evaluation of Curry

Duncan-Walker’s evaluations were not in the agenda backup, but Alachua Chronicle received them this afternoon from the City. In her comments, Duncan-Walker gave Curry a “2” in “Communication and Building Relationships,” writing, “This is an issue that we have discussed before, but unfortunately, according to Public Officials, City Staff, County Staff and community members this continues to be an area of concern.”

For “Fiscal Management,” Duncan-Walker gave Curry a “3” while writing, “I continue to acknowledge your sound judgment in the hiring of experienced professional staff to lead the Finance Department in addressing the significant challenges we have faced.”

For “Integrity,” Duncan-Walker gave Curry a “2” and provided an excerpt from a Weekly Update to the Children’s Trust Board in which the Trust’s Executive Director wrote, “I met with Manager Curry to clarify the Trust’s engagement with funding the Interrupters. Clarification was provided that NO Gun Violence Prevention Office will report to the Manager.” Duncan-Walker wrote, “In our discussions several months ago, you agreed that an Office of Gun Violence Prevention could be housed in the City Manager’s office. At no point did you share otherwise with me… This entire communique gives the appearance of an effort by you to undermine the efforts to work with the Children’s Trust on Gun Violence Prevention.”

Discussion on the City Clerk Position

Following up on a discussion last June about moving the City Clerk’s office under the City Manager’s office, Ward said the Commission could choose one of three paths: hire Kristen Bryant as the permanent Clerk, do a search for a permanent Clerk, or move the Clerk under the City Manager. He said he was not advocating for any of those.

After asking for public comment (there was none), Saco said Bryant had “demonstrated tremendous leadership to… correct some issues [and]… shore up the office… I would prefer the path of making Ms. Bryant permanent, if only because–not just for her tremendous skill and her ability, I don’t think we’d get someone as qualified as her. We could have a search, but as we just saw with the search for our Auditor, that could take a year, and it could come with a very significant price tag when we have someone who is exceptionally qualified right here, who already knows the internal mechanisms of the City, of the office… I would want to keep the Clerk separate.” She said the City Manager’s office doesn’t need “another project right now. The Manager has plenty on her plate… Ms. Bryant has shown that she is willing to cross-train a lot of her staff so that there’s always coverage… She is trying really hard to make sure that we have everything we need.”

Eastman said he had been the one to bring up the Charter provision that the City “may” have a City Clerk that is a Charter Officer, and “I thought that made a lot of sense back then because we were in the middle of very difficult budget discussions… A lot of changes were happening, we did not have a full-time Clerk that was in there, so moving that into the City Manager’s office made a lot of sense to me then; I think it makes a lot less sense now, at this point.”

“And so I, as the person who brought that forward before, I don’t think I see it as a credible way forward at the moment that we’re in.” – Commissioner Bryan Eastman

Eastman said it was important for him to “bring some stability to this government… I think that it may be a reform that makes sense in the future, but I don’t think it makes a lot of sense right now, to be making major reforms to the internal operations of the City. And so I, as the person who brought that forward before, I don’t think I see it as a credible way forward at the moment that we’re in.”

Willits said he was always “skeptical of the idea of consolidating the role into the City Manager” and that he was impressed that Bryant had identified some cost savings from her office. He added, “I’m sure we have a lot of challenges left in this budget year and into the next one, but I think we could do a lot worse than making Ms. Bryant our permanent City Clerk.”

Saco made a motion to make Bryant the permanent Clerk and direct the Mayor to negotiate a salary not to exceed the midpoint established for that position. Willits seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously, with Chestnut and Saco voting remotely and Duncan-Walker absent.

Ward said, “I don’t remember the last time we had a full slate of permanent charter officers, so that is gratifying, and, I think, very, very good for the City as an organization.”

The midpoint for the Clerk as of June 2023 was $129,336.