Mayor Hayward pays out severance packages, totaling more than $100K

When she announced her resignation in August 2014, City Administrator Colleen Castille made it sound like it was the natural end to a one-year commitment.

Through a public request, Inweekly has discovered her resignation and that of another senior leader in the mayor’s office came with hefty payouts. Each time Mayor Ashton Hayward changed his senior leadership the cost to taxpayers climbed.

In the summer of 2014, Castille’s two-page resignation letter began, “As I approach the end of my commitment for a year of service…”

And after listing the accomplishments during her 12 months, she ended her letter: “So it is with the high-placed confidence in you and your team that I hereby tender my resignation effective September 3rd, 2014. I am honored to have worked with you, Mayor Hayward, and thankful for the opportunity to work with the fine team of professionals on the 7th Floor to implement these many accomplishments.”

Mayor Hayward told the News Journal, “Colleen has done a tremendous job over the past year and I cannot thank her enough both for her friendship and for the depth of knowledge and insight she brought to our city.”

Communications Administrator Tamara Fountain told WUWF the transition was planned.

She said, “Everything was done with a lot of oversight and a lot of thought. So we have gone ahead and divided up the responsibilities and that way, we’ll have a nice, smooth transition.”

What Mayor Hayward and Fountain failed to mention was the mayor had agreed for the taxpayers to pay Castille a $50,000 severance check for her resignation from a job that paid her $130,000 annually. In return, Castille signed a General Release Agreement with a clause that she and the mayor agreed to not disparage the other to a third party. Read Castille_Release.

The transition plan was expensive. Eric Olson was promoted to Assistant City Administrator with a salary of $100,006. CFO Dick Barker was named interim City Administrator and Fountain was made Chief Operations Officer. Both were paid an additional $700 bi-weekly, which annualized out to be $18,200 each.

The cost of the city administrator function went from $130,000 a year to a combined annual total of $136,406.

Six months later Olson was named City Administrator –annual salary $133,016, Fountain and Barker lost their stipends, but Fountain’s salary was increased from $100,006 to $114,982. Vernon Stewart was brought on to handle the public information duties

The cost of the city administrator function jumped from $136,406 to $247,998 (Olson’s salary+Fountain’s salary) in March 2015.

In July 2015, Fountain got in trouble when her qualifications and education came under scrutiny.

WEAR TV reporter Amber Southward interviewed Mayor Hayward about the qualifications of his Chief Operations Officer. He misstated her salary and her degrees: “She’s very qualified, having an undergrad from Florida State and an MBA from the University of West Florida, so she understands government.”

Fountain that night sent Southard an email: “There is a bunch of stuff wrong in the story. I just watched the story. I am not a CFO. My salary is wrong. My time with responsibilities is wrong. Schools.”

Fountain demanded the story be taken off the air. She shutdown her Facebook page, and the City refused to release her personnel file. When they finally did, the folder had no resume or education information. The resume would later be delivered, but it had little prior work experience

On Monday, Aug. 10, 2015, the mayor’s office announced Fountain had resigned “in order to pursue other opportunities.”

According to the public records Inweekly received last week, Fountain was also given a sizable severance package (Fountain_Release) that was negotiated with the help of the Beggs & Lane law firm. Fountain’s package included 20 weeks severance and 128 Personal Time Off hours. The rate was based on the March 2015 pay increase. The Form PF-1002 showed the total payout was $54,002.

Total severance payouts for these two positions in the mayor’s office was $104,002.

After Fountain resigned, Barker was given a new stipend, equal to 10 percent of his salary, to oversee the Port of Pensacola, Pensacola Energy and Pensacola International Airport- total cost $12,314 annually. Later in the year, Keith Wilkins was hired as Assistant City Administrator, salary $119,995.

The cost of the city administrator function increased again from $247,998 to $265,325, more than doubling since Reynolds and Castille held the job.

 

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