BY TRACY LEE TATE
Times Staff Writer
LAKE BUTLER — Despite a month of questions and uproar at city meetings, City Manager Dale Walker said that everything that is going on is simply business as usual for a small city.
In an interview Feb. 2, Walker said that the spending being highlighted by Commissioner Melissa Hendrix is nothing irregular or improper. He also explained several of the items which had been brought up in the recent meetings.
On the topic of employees putting lunch on their city credit cards, Walker said this was standard practice when an employee was out of town on a work-related matter.
“Governmental accounting is not like a personal checking account,” Walker said. “If the employee is out of town on city business and lunch time rolls around, he or she is technically working during their lunch break and it is alright for them to charge their lunch on the city card.”
In regard to the shoe policy, which until recently allowed all employees $100 per year to put towards work shoes, Walker said when he took over as city manager the policy only benefited workers requiring steel-toe boots (which are rather expensive). In fact this was the intent of the policy when it was drafted several years ago. The policy was considered discriminatory by several workers who did not have to purchase special safety shoes, and they complained. Walker said he avoided the complaints about discrimination by simply extending the policy to cover all of the employees. The policy has now been done away with.
Uniforms are another issue that has come up in commission discussions after several charges for jeans, purchased at the Oaks Mall, were found on city credit card receipts.
“We had a clothing contractor that provided uniforms but the employees were constantly complaining about the smell, that the uniforms were not clean and that the fit on the pants was too loose to allow working around mowers and other machines to be done safely,” Walker said. “We decided that jeans, shirts and hats would be suitable uniforms and present a suitable appearance and a better impression, so we set an amount for each employee required to were them and they were allowed to make purchases to fill their uniform needs. They are responsible for any repairs needed to the clothing and keeping it laundered as needed. ”
Walker said the cost seemed like more as it was money being spent “up front,” rather than annually, but that all was within the budget for each worker. He said the episode cited where Public Works Director Cody Douglas purchased several pairs of jeans did not mean he was buying them all for himself. He was, Walker said, buying for several employees while he was in Gainesville.
Other questions have been put forth concerning hiring practices, particularly for the contract to keep the spray field mowed and raked. It turns out that he inadvertently hired relatives of the public works director – a fact that he did not know.
“I am not from here and have not been here very long and I do not have the advantage of personal knowledge of all of the local people, so I do not always know who is related to who and in what way,” Walker said.
As for the project to acquire a hotel for the city, that project has hit a snag. Although the feasibility study came back positive for the communities ability to support a hotel, the anonymous private investor who would have paid part of the cost has pulled his support – a deal-breaker with the hotel chain considering locating in the city.
The hotel was estimated to bring $150,000 in bed tax and another $150,000 in sales tax to the city annually.
On the topic of offering to pay for a college education for any city employee who wants to attend, Walker said, “Nothing benefits everybody. How many are really going to go and stick with it.”
As too the book club membership for several employees, he said, “These books are given to the senior employees to read and then be discussed. They are all professional development books and I have seen improvements in the senior staff since they started reading them.”
Walker said that, when he was first hired, he was told by the city commission that they wanted to see economic development and growth for the city and that is the goal he set for himself from the start. What he did not know was the general resistance to change and growth among the citizens.
“If you don’t want growth then the city will die,” Walker said.
During his four years as city manager, Walker said he has applied for and been awarded more than $40 million in grants for the city and several hundred thousand dollars in appropriations. Just the amount of the grants provides $20,000 worth of value to each resident of the city. His focus has been on infrastructure, as he says the city must have a firm infrastructure base in order to be considered as a location for new businesses that will bring jobs and economic development. By securing grants and other funding sources, Walker said the actual cost to the city is very small – less than 1%.
Walker said he considers what has been going on recently to be handled in an unprofessional manner and that his lack of comments to the discussions has been because of that. He said he has done nothing wrong in the course of his job and that, contrary to comments made in the meetings, the city has an outside entity looking after its welfare. He did speak to the Lake Butler Rotary Club recently and answered there questions about the recent problems.
“You don’t get very far here without somebody looking at what you are doing,” Walker said. “We have the city auditors looking over our shoulders and then James Moore CPA is overseeing the ARPA fund reporting. Every charge made by an employee must have the receipt turned in, with the explanation written in it for what was paid or purchased. The same is true for invoices.
“We are following standard government spending and accounting practices and no one is doing anything unethical or wrong,” Walker said.
