The Palm Coast City Council this morning approved a contract that would pay Matthew Morton, its incoming manager, $145,000 a year. But the council, on Mayor Milissa Holland’s insistence, deleted a clause that would have granted Morton automatic, annual non-merit raises calibrated to the percentage awarded city employees.
Holland called herself “perplexed” by the proposal to award Morton’s raises without council intervention.
“Although we approve the budget for pay increases for the staff that’s employed by the city of Palm Coast, we don’t determine what those rate increases will be,” Holland said. The city manager does. She did not say so, but she was alluding to the fact that by tying Morton’s raises to employee raises, the manager in effect would be deciding his own raises. “We can deny it when it comes to the budget and not approve that expenditure, and that would certainly give us the ability to do that, but I do think it puts us at a little bit of a disadvantage.”
Holland wants more attention paid to evaluations of the city manager “and what we feel is working and what we feel maybe is not working,” she said, describing herself as uncomfortable “giving that type of leeway of determining pay increases” to the manager.
The contract was drafted by Council member Bob Cuff, City Clerk Virginia Smith and City Attorney Bill Reischmann, in negotiations with Morton.
Reischmann said the contract “does provide for an annual evaluation” on the anniversary date” of the manager’s hire, though he acknowledged that Morton’s contract did not tie raises to evaluations, as it had in Landon’s case.
“That’s for us to discuss as a council when we do make that evaluation, which I do not think a progress report is an evaluation, I need to state that publicly,” Holland said. She was alluding to one of Landon’s bold if disingenuous habit, enabled by past councils year after year, to use his own glossy, PR-leaden (and costly) annual reports of city government as his performance reviews, even though it was entirely the product of his own hand and those of his PR staff. Two years ago Holland put an end to that. “I think we need to go through a process of a full evaluation of our city manager moving forward, on an annual basis, and I’m comfortable saying that that evaluation at that time, we can discuss an increase of compensation,” Holland said.
“We evaluate our city manager,” Holland said. To stress the point, she said the contract must be explicit about that annual evaluation.
Holland drew no disagreement from her colleagues on the council, not even from Cuff. The contract proposal was changed to reflect the deletion of automatic raises and to mandate annual evaluations. The council approved the proposal 5-0. It remains a proposal because Morton has to agree to the changes. Since he had not requested the change Holland made, he is not expected to object. (The Observer reported that he did not.) He also got an added provision that was not in the contract submitted to the council for review: the addition of a car as part of the moving expenses that will be paid by the city.
Morton, 44, lives in Washington State. The city is assuming all costs of his move, plus $6,000 on top of that. Further details about his contract are here.
Matthew Morton Proposed Contract (Without Today’s Amendments):
Click to access matthew-morton-proposed-contract.pdf
tulip says
I am glad they changed the rules about Mr. Morton’s raises. The council seems to have learned by it’s mistakes they made dealing with Landon, Mr Morton’s salary plus benefits are nowhere near as exorbitant. It was nice to see the council discuss options sensibly and reach an agreement without intimidation from anyone else.
People complained on the first story about his raise that this manager is also being paid too much. If a city doesn’t pay a decent wage then good qualified people are not going to want the job. Landon’s pay and perks were way overboard. Morton’s seem more fair. Someone said the city manager shouldn’t get paid more that the governor. Believe me the Governor gets lots of benefits and perks, including the governors mansion to live in free, planes, the best medical plans, chauffeurs, etc. That all adds up.
palmcoaster says
Morton is not qualified as he comes to manage for 3 years only an Oregon Duvall city of only 8,000 residents when Palm Coast at least counts with 76,000. And if all of those that are discontent with mayor Holland and councilmen Klufas and Branquinho hiring him may want to show up and let them know in next Tuesday council workshop meeting at 9 am as everyone has 3 minutes to speak once, before or after the meeting. I spoke against their motion on the table in the Tuesday workshop meeting right before their 3 votes for Morton with Councilmen Howell and Cuff opposing it. Only 4 residents present spoke in that meeting two against the motion for Mr. Morton and 2 going along with council majority decision. I welcome council opposition to Mr. Morton’s desired annual raises and making the changes in his contract but anyway. I am still concerned about our city employees and the department heads that have been working for us such a long time, some since we incorporated and they live among us and have experience in their professional work. Specially after learning that the head of publics works Mr. Abreu just decided to retire as announced…
Bill says
Im SHOCKED that PC is paying him LESS then his predecessor. GOOD about time when a new head of??? comes in they dont make as much or more then the last guy. Also IMO any in our local government making anything over 75K a year should only get a raise (if at all) of 1/2 the percent they give the rank and file workers.
James says
We, the PC tax payers, should have the right to vote on any pay increases.
Perhaps at an open PCCC meeting… anyone interested should show up for a quick yea/nay vote. I doubt many would, since our local government seems to have been getting away with such missteps for quite some time now.
I know I would if given the opportunity.
snapperhead says
I disagree with across the board pay raises for any government entity. It’s lazy management. Where’s the incentive to do a better job than another employee if you’re all going to get the same raise? Everyone should be evaluated on an individual basis and payed accordingly.