The More You Know!

A few weeks ago, I heard something that was surprising and I didn't realize myself.

Our county administrator, Steve Howard, gets automatic raises without going through the review process by commissioners. Hmmm.

A bit of background.

Mr Howard was hired officially in October 2022. He was one of two finalists for the position and the board voted to offer him the contract and if he did not accept, offer it to the 2nd selection, Tobey Philips. Howard agreed to the contract obviously.

The original agreement signed in 2022 stated he would earn $197,500 annually and that "salary will be reviewed annually and is subject to adjustment equal to that provided other county employees. In addition to the adjustments provided other employees, the board may increase the employee's salary, by motion, at an official board meeting in its sole discretion". He also gets a cell phone, a SUV, health and vehicle insurance coverage, 401k contributions, I assume FRS contributions as other employees get, moving expenses and so on. He also received 160 hours of vacation to start the contract and additional would accrue at the same rate as a 10+ year employee. The cap is set at 480 hours. He also receives 21 personal days.

Basically, he is to be paid a salary and that will be reviewed annually and can be increased at the same rate as other employees in the county and increased further at the discretion of the board.

The contract also discusses the evaluation process. You can see that below.

The contract states the BOCC will annually review Howard each January following a process they mutually agree to. This review will also include discussion of goals from the past 12 months and then future 12 months. There is then to be written evaluation of the goals and objectives. Then a final written evaluation delivered to him within 30 days.

Then that was amended in November of 2023, so a little over a year after his initial hiring. During this meeting, the BOCC decided to increase his salary to $215,670. This included the cost of living adjustment and an additional $10,000 raise. For what its worth, he is paid hourly based on 40 hours, but certainly works more than that. His hourly rate was set at $103.687 per hour. That us up from $98.749 per hour prior to this change.

Howard also requested a bit of a change to the contract.

He asked for a bump in total vacation hour cap to 960 hours. The reason he said was this is similar to what other counties have and he rarely takes vacation so does not want to lose those hours. Makes sense, however, I do not think his employees have that cap. I believe they have the lower cap amount. Remember, if he does not use the vacation time and he retires, he can get paid for those hours. He would get paid if he used them as well, but not in a lump sum payment like it would be at the end. More importantly, by banking hours, as he continues to get raises, those hours are worth more money.

Remember the raise. Prior to the raise, he was paid at $98.749 per hour. After the raise, he was at $103.687. Those vacation hours are now worth $4.938 per hour more than they were before.

Worth noting.

Further, he asked for changes in his review process. Now it is changed to this:

Now instead of a board review, he gets reviewed by the commissioners individually, away from the public. If they wish to leave him a written evaluation, it would be included in his file. The evaluations may be discussed at a meeting.

How many reviews do you think he has had since he has been here? I did a records request for that and it came back as ZERO. I asked a couple of commissioners if they have reviewed Howard formally. The answer was "No". Those reviews are to take place in January each year. I do not see any review records for January 2025, 2024 or 2023.

Not having one in 2023 makes sense because he was only on the job for a couple of months. But 2024 and 2025? Should have been done. And since he changed it in November 2023 and the BOCC approved it, he no longer has to go through the formal review in a meeting that Randy Oliver had to endure. It is now a closed door review and if no documents are produced, no one knows what was said.

I get it. No one wants to sit through that meeting and listen to their bosses give them a review, but I feel that comes with the government job. It also helps with transparency and holding employees accountable. But I get it. Take away the public portion, fine, but there still needs to be a review and there needs to be notes added to the file.

Even if it is "You are doing great, Bravo". I hope it would be more in depth than that as I think everyone will agree that we can all do better. I also feel that commissioners need to give him a set of goals/objectives for the year and see where he is at the end of that year.

I am willing to bet every single employee under Howard gets some type of review annually. Why should their boss not undergo the same thing? What kind of message does that send to staff? At the very least, something should be said, but according to public records, there are no reviews at all. Odd.

But going back to raises, remember that he can do the review and get the raises that staff gets annually? Well he has been getting those. His current salary is $224,296.80 or $107.835 per hour. I am willing to bet NO ONE in the public knows that because... there is no public review or disclosure of that. Remember, he changed the contract to remove that.

His salary isn't discussed by the BOCC because it is included in the Administration budget and either missed or never brought up. It is included in their annual raises. I have not seen one commissioner mention it. I am told that once again, it is in the next budget, so he is set to get a raise to $231,025.704 or around that. That is $111.07 per hour.

But I want to point this out. The contract change didnt include a change in the compensation terminology. It still says "salary will be reviewed annually". Why has that NOT been done since November 2023?

I am not here to question how much money someone is making. That is not the intent at all. I am putting this out there so the public knows. I believe he is making what administrators make in this state. Jeff Rogers makes around $301k in Hernando County. You can decide if you think it is too much or not.

Side note.. Remember those vacation hours being banked. Each hour is now worth $3.235 per hour more than in November 2023.

The point here is that this should be presented to the public every year. The commissioners should each do the review as required by his updated contract. Each should write that review down and include it in his file. They can each decide if he gets the raise each year or not. But all that information should be an agenda item in a January meeting available for the public to review. If they do not want to discuss it publicly, they don't have to, but allow the public to easily review it.

Now, all that said. Something that stood out at that meeting is the motion to approve the amended contract also included a motion to negotiate terms of the contract. In that motion, the board appointed Commissioner Finegan to be the person to negotiate the contract along with the county attorney. The board wanted a three year contract with two one year renewals for a total of five years.

I do not see anywhere where that negotiation happened. When I got the copy of the contract from public records, there was no three year contract with renewals for one year. There was no employment term indicated. It is an open ended contract for as long as he and the county want it to be.

What happened to that and why was the change not made?

Remember, the board voted 4-1: "Support what administrator Howard has requested but with the exception that we will come back with a three year contract with two one year renewables and that we need to appoint someone to work out the details of that contract and what's expected each year in it."

That was the motion that the board approved. Yet, what was signed by then Chairman Schlabach was not that. There was no three year contract. There was no one year renewables. There was no performance criteria set in it. The ONLY changes made were for salary, vacation hour cap increase and review purposes.

Since this was NOT the direction of the board, does this mean that the contract is null and void as Schlabach was NOT directed to sign it without the three year and two one year renewals included?

I am not sure, but apparently, what is there now is not what the board authorized to be there in November 2024.