Last week County Administrator Craig Coffey and County Commissioner Milissa Holland fought verbally and publicly over each other’s roles in finding uses for the old county courthouse. Holland accused Coffey of railroading her attempt to get Sheriff Don Fleming, the Bunnell city administration and the county’s historical society to use the building jointly. Coffey charged back that he merely applied a “professional” analysis to the plan and showed it to be unworkable, supposedly losing the sheriff’s interest in the building along the way.
The Coffey-Holland smackdown happened Thursday, during a commission workshop on next year’s budget and on the fate of the old courthouse.
On Friday, before leaving on vacation to the Keys, Coffey added an item to next week’s commission meeting: a request for “consideration of the renewal” of his contract.
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Worried over his job security, Coffey is also worried over how the commission might fire him–without severance, and leaving him little time to plan for himself, because his contract is written as a double-edged sword: Approved in November 2007, the three-year contract would renew automatically for another three years if commissioners do nothing by Sept. 1. In that regard, the background material to commissioners for the June 7 meeting regarding the contract is slightly inaccurate: it states that the “agreement provides for an automatic renewal for an additional three years on September 1, 2010, (90 days) if the board so chooses.” There is no such affirmative requirement from the commission. without putting the contract out for discussion, or for public comment, the administrator’s three-year term would simply renew.
Commissioners are required to take action only if they intend to end the agreement, and they must do so in writing by Sept. 1. That’s what Coffey is worried about. Should the commission choose to fire him, it could do so without having to pay him severance by writing him by Sept. 1 that the contract won’t be renewed. Coffey would still get paychecks until Dec. 4 (his annual base pay was $140,000, plus a $400-a-month car allowance). But no severance.
Coffey’s concern, he wrote in the third person in the background to commissioners, “is that should the board choose not to renew the employment contract a 90 day notice does not provide adequate time to seek employment.” Comparing himself to County Attorney Al Hadeed, who is the only other employee the commission hires and fires, Coffey wrote: “The administrator believes he is in a slightly different career position than the county attorney, which limits his ability to find a similar position within the county.”
Coffey’s move is risky. He is essentially challenging commissioners not only to affirm their confidence in him, but, by asking for “consideration of the renewal of this contract” two months before the critical Sept. 1 date, he’s asking them to jump the clock and to do so on the heels of one of the worst public confrontations by a commissioner he’s had to endure. But he also knows that confrontations with Holland are nothing new, and not just for Coffey: she can be quick on the draw and her memory, like her family name, runs deep in Flagler’s past. She opposed hiring Coffey three years ago, questioning his familiarity with local issues. Her antipathy for Coffey is nothing new.
Coffey spoke prophetically three years ago when he compared dealing with different commissioners to “a balancing act–a tightrope.” But he also miscalculated, as far as Holland was concerned, when he said that he worked for the public, not for commissioners. Strictly speaking, an administrator works for the public and the commission. In Holland’s view, Coffey — who was hired on a 3-2 vote, with Holland and then-Commissioner Jim O’Connell in dissent — works for her. That was precisely the issue in last week’s confrontation, when Holland took issue with Coffey allegedly going around her courthouse committee and changing the committee’s plans. Coffee rejects the characterization.
(© FlaglerLive)
A final note: the contract matter appears as the last of 14 items on the “consent” portion of the commission’s June 7 agenda. Consent items are not discussed individually. They’re supposedly routine items that the commission approves as a whole, with one vote. Commissioners can always pull individual items out of consent for discussion, and almost always do. But what ends up on the consent agenda speaks of the administration’s subjective judgments of what is and isn’t worthy of public discussion.
It’s also common in all local governments that elected officials just as routinely leave their top employees’ contract renewals on the consent agenda in hopes of avoiding having to publicize and defend the contracts’ size and benefits. In this case, it is virtually certain that Coffey’s item will be pulled from the consent portion and turned into, to put it politely, a discussion item.
Kevin says
I realize this has nothing to do with the column but is there a way to learn aBOUT Coffey’s academic and business credentials??? I’d really like to know what an average number of hours strictly dedicated to his function sum up to be.
$140,000k and $400/month allowance seems very rich indeed given the work that others do for less money and more responsibility in the private sector. Let him pay for his own fucking car with that kind of salary. More and more managerial level government positions appear to be equivalent to seats of royalty.
Plant a money tree..you may need it says
I urge the commission to not prematurely discuss Craig Coffey’s contract. Craig should now feel how many other county employees felt when their job security was of concern before being let go in recent years. Is this Karma? Craig Coffey knew the language of his contract when he signed it, and now all the sudden, it doesn’t fit? Don’t carpet baggers come to town, take your money, and leave?
Top heavy administration must come to an end in Flagler County. The commissioners are GIVING salaries of $140k plus to those like Craig Coffey when the Governor doesn’t even make this amount money. I am sure there is someone who would do Craig Coffey’s job and do it better for far less. High paying jobs as this must to be renegotiated, or eliminated; the economy can’t support these outrageous rates of pay. Some please reveal what all others are paid that work for the BoC.
When one gets fired, they don’t get advance notice to sabotage the work place. If you are making $140,000 per year plus $400 per month travel you don’t need a severance package, and you won’t starve anytime soon. If Coffey was so concerned about money why would he be taking a vacation to the Florida Keys instead of using vacation money to look for another job? He should (and I hope he will be) be noticed on September 1, 2010 that his contract will NOT be renewed, and he can spend the money he will be paid (that he has not earned) until December 2010 to find another job. Good luck!
DP says
It’s funny how he is worried about him and himself only, but fails to think about the employee’s and there families, most of which will once again see a hefty increase in health care costs and more out of pocket expenses. Those same employees’s haven’t received a raise or better yet even a merit raise the last two years. Under Coffey’s rule the true blue collar workers have lost their jobs, have had their pay reduced, with the remaining ones an increase of workloads, when the upper management continues to enjoy having assistants to assistants and contracts to hide behind. I understand the economy and the effects as I live and own a home here in Flagler. I say enough is enough, before the lower class blue collar workers lose their jobs; start cutting from the top down, Coffey needs to go first.