One of the most universal concepts in our society is that you often get what you pay for.
We talked in January about citizens being angry with County Manager Alicia Vaughn’s salary at $187,950, according to her new contract. We also posited what a model with a cheaper county manager would look like.
The first thing folks need to understand is this - whatever you thought was a correct salary three years ago is not so now. COVID-19 changed absolutely everything about salaries, cost of living and what people expect to be paid for work in every single industry.
Second, comparisons to surrounding counties show that the job of running our county is worth the money.
Colquitt County, which has a nearly identical population to that of Habersham, pays its county manager $156,000, but their county does not govern a fire department, a parks and recreation department or an industrial park.
Camden County had 10,000 more people than we do in 2020, and they pay almost the same salary ($188,000) with no airport or business park to deal with under their county government.
The dissenting voices from the community – who have every right to question their leaders and their salaries, especially when we are paying them – claim that their protests are not personal in nature. But it sort of feels like they might be, when it is clear that Habersham County is not going to bring in someone else to do a quality job for any less money right now.
Again, the money we are paying the county manager will not get us out of trouble with the landfill, jail or hospital. But strong leadership can.
We have seen Vaughn try to build bridges among the county and the municipalities, many of which have squabbled for many years.
The commissioners had a chance last week to move on from Vaughn if they thought they could do better for their money, but they renewed her deal because they knew that was a red herring.
Commissioner Jimmy Tench did not support Vaughn’s new deal, and Vice Chairman Bruce Harkness swallowed hard and voted for it after a speech full of backhanded compliments at best. But once the commissioners were done talking about the contract in secret, they should have come out of the room and supported her in unison, or dismissed her in unison, if that’s the way they felt.
Our leaders need to pull the rope together instead of engaging in tug of war, or it will perpetually be Groundhog Day in Habersham with continued missteps and bad decisions.