Beaumont drops half a million dollars on assistants for new city manager

With only one councilmember balking at adding new administrative positions totaling in excess of $700,000  – $715,000, to be exact –  after the city has already penned in a budget for the fiscal year that began three months ago, the elected leaders of the Beaumont City Council and Mayor Robin Mouton voted to bless the proposal made by new Beaumont City Manager Kenneth Williams.

Williams had already obligated the city to hiring two new assistant city managers, one who was already on the payroll in a similar position, and went so far as to officially announce their employment two months before the city council approved the unbudgeted job creation. Each will earn in excess of $200,000, plus benefits that include car and cell phone allowance, and more, worth approximately $50,000 in extras for each new hire.

The additional $200,000 added to the budget for the years to come is for the creation of two new departments – one for splitting the parks and recreation department into two and naming a head for both, and the other for the newly created communications department.

Nov. 8, 2022, two months and two days into Williams’ role as Beaumont City Manager, his office announced the creation of two assistant city manager positions, as well as the persons who would fill the highly paid posts.

Christopher Boone, who was paid $200,000 a year to serve as the interim city manager before the council hired Williams instead, was promoted from his position as the city’s director of planning and community development to assistant city manager of development services effective in November 2022. Boone’s salary will be the same in the new position as it was as the city’s leader, but his former director position is now open for a new face to fill it.

The second executive staffer added to the taxpayer-funded payroll is that of June Ellis, to serve as the assistant city manager of administration. Ellis had worked with Williams in Buda previously, and was most recently the city administrator of Haskell. He was set to arrive in Beaumont “on or before Jan. 3, 2023,” and was in attendance on Jan. 10 when the Beaumont City Council cemented Williams’ plans to add in the new manpower.

In advance of his arrival as one of the highest taxpayer-paid persons in Beaumont, Ellis spoke with the city’s new communication team to dish about himself and where he’s been instead of in Southeast Texas.

“I got involved in this line of work 26 years ago when I began working for the City of Detroit, Michigan,” Ellis detailed. “During my ten years there, I worked in the Budget Department and quickly advanced from a Junior Governmental Analyst to a Budget Manager. As a Budget Manager, I worked directly with leadership in various city departments on critical programs, policies, and capital projects.

“At the City of Detroit, I gained my initial vision of becoming a leader in municipal government. It taught me the basics of being a civil servant and how important we are in the functioning of municipal government.”

In 2004, roughly year eight into Ellis’ stated tenure in Detroit, the Department of Justice released an announcement indicating fiscal corruption on the part of a sitting councilmember while Ellis was in the budgetary office.

Then United States Attorney Craig S. Morford announced that Detroit City Council member Kay Everett was indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges of wire fraud, extortion, bribery, conspiracy to commit those offenses, making false statements to investigators and filing false tax returns. The 27-count indictment charges that, between 1997 and 2002, Everett demanded and accepted over $150,000 in payments from a local contractor who held contracts with the City of Detroit during that time period.

Rural Texas to Big Money

From the big city to small-town Texas, Ellis then embarked on city administrator jobs closer to his hometown of Lovelady.

In Haskell, where Ellis most previously performed administrative oversight, the community was drastically smaller than the city he now assistant manages. And, it is smaller now than it was 10 years ago, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 2010, Haskell reported 3,322 residents. By 2020, Haskell residency had declined to 3,089 – a more than 10% decrease in the last decade.

The entirety of Haskell County, where Haskell sits as its county seat, hosts a population of just 5,416, after its creation more than 100 years ago in 1858.

The demographics are quite different, as well. Haskell County boasts a predominately white and Hispanic population – comprising 92% of all residents in 2020 – and a Black or mixed race population just over 6%.

Haskell residents, as of the most recent census, are 91% white and Hispanic population; and 7% Black or mixed race.

Beaumont, by comparison, boasts a 49% mixed race and Black population, and 28% white population for its more than 115,000 residents counted in the 2020 census. The number of employees just at Beaumont’s two main hospitals – St. Elizabeth (2,136) and Baptist (1,653) – outnumber the entire population of Haskell. Throw in the employees of ExxonMobil (2,182), and the population outnumbers all of Haskell County.

At Haskell, in 2021, the city administrator earning report to the Texas City Management Association lists the top admin earning $112,600 – almost half of Ellis’ new salary as an assistant city manager. Ellis did sign a new contract in 2022 with the city of Haskell, which raised his annual pay to $118,230. Ellis signed the two-year contract with Haskell on June 27, 2022, four months before being featured in a city of Beaumont employment announcement.

City Manager Williams listed several cities to which he believes the $200,000 pay scale for each of his two new assistant city managers is similar; however, varying information avails for the position throughout the state, each office position different from the next.

According to the ZipRecruiter search engine, which compiled a report of the annual pay for Assistant City Managers in Texas as of Jan. 3, the average salary is $61,232 a year.

The base salary for Assistant City Manager in Austin, for example, ranges from $79,657 to $106,021 with the average base salary of $92,328. Abiline, which holds a population 10,000 more than Beaumont, offers starting pay for Assistant City Manager at $129,289.

“We have to give them a reason to come and work in Beaumont,” Councilman Chris Durio remarked, supporting the quarter-million dollar annual investments for each of two assistant city managers.

Help wanted

Other positions within the city have not benefitted from the same fervor. Beaumont has a host of positions available on its website, seeking help in every department from street repair to library staff. Most positions have been posted for more than 30 days; most of those positions are for pay less than $20 an hour.

For example, the city is seeking a code enforcement officer – responsible for “inspections and enforcement of city environmental codes and ordinances; represents the city in municipal and county courts; interprets health, safety and environmental regulations; answers public inquiries through research of city maps and records; maintains current records and researches tax rolls for property ownership; compiles information from tax records and GIS maps; enters data into computer; inspects properties for compliance with codes and prepares reports of inspections and investigations; makes recommendations detailing corrective actions required; discusses inspections findings and recommendations with property owners; uses photography and computer equipment.” The pay – $14 an hour.

Other job openings include:

• Building maintenance help wanted; pay, $10 an hour.

• Police department case specialist help wanted; pay, $15 an hour.

• Crew leader wanted for streets department; pay, $18 an hour.

• Heavy-duty equipment operator wanted; pay, $15.21 an hour.

• Park inspector wanted; pay, $12 an hour.

Williams addressed concern that he acted outside of the city Charter, or code of procedures, to add in new positions for employment, saying the local rules are vague. There may be policies that could have been acted on differently, Williams vocalized, but the city’s Charter “does not clearly define the implementation of those policies,” he said.

“The Charter-defined process is unclear,” according to Williams. “It’s time for an update.”

What would really help, Williams said, is a salary survey to see where salaries should be and where they are in the city. Williams was unwilling to wait for a study before making the largest salary hires.

“I think a salary survey would solve most of our issues with pay and such,” Williams said. “We’re really close to doing that.”

The lone dissenter in spending the city’s savings on salaries for new executive positions, Councilman Taylor Neild, worries that now is not the time to expend the money saved for emergencies, such as natural disasters, of which Beaumont is no stranger.

“We need to be smart with the way we spend money,” Neild dismayed. “It’s important to have a healthy fund balance, especially in this area in Texas. By depleting the fund balance, a little bit at a time, it starts making me uneasy.”

Williams’ department realignment has already sparked lawsuits from the city Fire and EMS workers. At the same meeting to approve Williams’ Assistant City Manager hirings, the elected officials were also set to discuss pending litigation with the Fire Department employees, as well as pending litigation by a former park and recreation employee.

The discussion was postponed due to a court postponement of the matter until Friday, Jan. 13.