- April 19, 2024
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The Flagler Beach Commission will conclude their city manager’s performance review at the Feb. 9 commission meeting.
Commissioner Deborah Phillips began a discussion at Jan. 26’s meeting to follow-up the performance review for City Manager William Whitson. Phillips also asked Whitson if he needed additional help.
In a statement explaining her reasoning for the agenda item, Phillips said she didn’t want things to slip anymore.
“I want you, city manager, to be proactive in your job,” she said, “not reactive in your day.”
“I want you, city manager, to be proactive in your job, not reactive in your day.” — Deborah Phillips, commission vice chair
Whitson received a performance review in July 2022, where the commission board gave him instructions on how to improve his performance.
He overall rated ‘meets job standards,’ Phillips said, with one commissioner giving him a ‘needs improvement’ score, four commissioners rating him average ‘meets job standards’ and one giving him an ‘exceeds standards.’
The review came after several slip-ups on Whitson’s end in 2022 — like missing the application deadline for a grant in the beginning of 2022 — and the commission originally intended to do a 90-day review of his progress since then. Because of the hurricanes last fall, the review, like many items, was pushed to the back burner.
Whitson joined Flagler Beach as its city manager in May 2021, a spot that sat empty for more than eight months after the previous city manager, Larry Newsom, died in August 2020. Whitson inherited several issues from the previous administration, he said; Commission Chair Ken Bryan agreed, saying problems had built up in the absence of a city manager.
“The city was in a hole for a while,” Bryan said.
Whitson told the commission that he is trying to dig them out of that hole, but part of the issue is the city's short staffing. The department supervisors and team leads — who would normally be able to assist the city manager in smaller projects — are out in the field instead, he said. Leaving Whitson with many projects he has to handle himself instead of delegating.
“There’s no administrative support, there’s no bandwidth, there’s no structure in place to help them.” — William Whitson, city manager
“There’s no administrative support, there’s no bandwidth, there’s no structure in place to help them,” Whitson said.
Yet, at the same time the city is understaffed, the city’s website only has three job positions listed as available for applications. Staffing falls under the city manager's purview.
Cooley said that they can’t expect to find new employees until they have completed the competitive pay analysis that has been in the works since the summer. Whitson delayed starting that analysis until the new fiscal year in October instead of requesting the funding to begin it right away. It was then further delayed by the hurricanes.
“We have more positions now than we have had in a very long time,” Cooley said. “We have positions, but there are no bodies in them.”
Ultimately, after much circuitous discussion, the commission directed Whitson and staff to finish their current pay analysis and implement the new payroll — expected to be completed by the end of February — and then focus on filling the staff from the bottom up, instead of adding a new position to support Whitson.
That should, hopefully, alleviate the number of projects on Whitson’s plate.
“You can't do it top down, more management's not going to get that happening,” Cooley said. “You got to fill your positions before you can do anything.”
“It is time to move on because we as a city have a lot of work to do. And I feel like we are sometimes going in circles.” — Deborah Phillips, commission vice chair
The commission will review Whitson’s performance on Feb. 9, based on the direction given to him in July from his first review.
“It is time to move on because we as a city have a lot of work to do,” Phillips said. “And I feel like we are sometimes going in circles.”
