We made a few phone calls to area corporations and non-profit and we couldn’t find any newly hired marketing coordinator that makes $63,000, especially ones with no experience. Starting salaries run in the low and mid-30s. Four to five years of experience might garner a starting salary in the mid-40s.
Forrest Gibbs is an asphalt salesman who got a starting salary of $63K as the marketing coordinator at Escambia County Equestrian Center. This is a travesty.
While governments are streamlining, privatizing, cutting benefits and laying off workers, Escambia County hires at nearly twice the market rate.
Explain this to county employees who haven’t gotten raises in years, ECAT workers that are fighting for $11/hour jobs and those 63 other job applicants willing to do the job for $44K.
I like Wilson Robertson, Gibbs’ patron, but this isn’t the 1980s when the commissioners were the ticket to cushy county jobs.
Robertson needs to tell Gibbs to resign and save the taxpayers’ money and the employee morale. County Commission needs to stay out of hiring and establish a board policy that mandates the separation, similar to what the City of Pensacola has.