At their next meeting, the city commission will consider an employment contract for recently appointed city attorney Cassandra K. Jackson.
The contract calls for an annual salary of $203, 528 with an initial term of five years. The annual salary can be changed annually by the city commission.
In comparison, the Leon County Commission’s head attorney is currently paid a base salary of $315,573 and outgoing City Attorney Lew Shelley had a base salary of $204, 000 in 2016.
The contract also provides that Ms. Jackson will have the exclusive and unrestricted use, at all times during her employment with the city, of an automobile provided her by the city. The contract does not provide any financial information related to this provision.
Also included in the contract is language dealing with the termination of the agreement. The proposed contract states:
In the event the Agreement is not renewed, all compensation, benefits and requirements of this Agreement shall remain in effect until the expiration of the Initial Term or any renewal unless Employee voluntarily resigns, subject to the provision set forth in Section 4.
TR is has asked city officials for an interpretation of this language.
Well, if the past holds true…Ms Jackson will have to work very hard and put in many hours defending and justifying the shenannigans of a few COT officials. So she will definitely earn her salary….and don’t be surprised if she’s given a hefty raise to match the county attorney. I seriously doubt those that she will be protecting would object.
Well ALLIED,
If you just stop and look at what Thieving Tricky Rick did – and review his ‘negotiated’ severance packet via Cassandra Jackson’s actions as Lou Shelley was exiting stage left – you will see that Rick’s immoral, unethical and illegal doings cost tax payer’s a whole lot more $ than your make-believe unbalanced presentation. Simply call it what it is. Thievery. The FBI uses other terms….Hey – new headlines on the Democrat on the City/FBI. Deja-Vu – all over again…
MV
Well MV….I’m surely not as smart as you, but if you look at the number of employees before Ric Fernandez and the total salaries and compare to the departments that he eliminated and combined..it is less employees and more savings even with the higher salaries. For example, If you had 5 people being paid $100k each, then you terminated those people and eliminated/combined an entire agency under another department, and only have the current supervisor who took on the entire department a $30k raise…well looks like a $470k savings to me..and then eliminated employees with layoffs..another savings…but again..not as smart as you..
Allie, it appears that you might need to brush up on Grammar 101! Your terminology, “less employees” is incorrect! It should be “fewer employees!”
ALLIED – you are naive or part of the problem (or both). Exorbitant wages for ‘professional’ jobs – when employed via the COT ARE the issue; and the single BEST indicator of cronyism, preferential advancement based on willingness to follow immoral, unethical or illegal activity AND often incompetence. This is by design via the City Manager (not voted in) working with Human Resources (not voted in) and the City Attorney (not voted in) and the elected commissioners have little to do with this. It is called a Weak Mayor System. Get it?
Just try and get a copy of the current wages (with the name of the person and what they actually do) and the advancements for the top paid 400 COT employees.
Your statement is demonstrably false.
Go ahead and try and find COT wages and let us know what you find.
Mike….the citizen’s of good ole Tally voted for these corrupt people the FBI are investigating! Not sure what the professional jobs/salaries I was referring to have to do with that!
Allie, read my comment again – I said “top-level COT officials”. I didn’t include or imply that rank and file professional employees were the problem, but I plainly pointed out that the top-level elected and appointed officials are where the corruption is concentrated. Blaming the “voters of Tally” is a complete dodge – people are responsible for their own ethical (or unethical) conduct. It’s not the voters’ or “society’s” fault, it’s the corrupt individual’s fault.
It’s a similar situation to the FBI and DOJ in Washington – the agencies are mostly hardworking, dedicated, patriotic and ethical rank and file employees/supervisors. But at the top level there is extreme corruption and deep-state plotting, practiced by Comey, Brennan, Rosenstein, Clapper, Mueller, Strzok, Paige, and their accomplices (all encouraged and directed by obama). My sincere hope is that they’re all tried for criminal and treasonous activities and serve long, long prison terms. Same with Hillary’s State Department cronies and Hill herself.
Similarly, I hope that the FBI unit here in Tallahassee is comprised of dedicated and ethical agents and lawyers, and that their investigation of COT brings justice to any “top level COT officials” who are found to deserve it. Doubtless the great majority of hardworking, ethical COT employees will cheer that day even more than we average citizens.
To Our New Forth-Coming Commissioners and Mayor,
1. Please include Un-doing this bizarre salary injustice and ‘TEMPORARY’ hiring practice specifically for Cassandra Jackson as part of your platform; that will get you votes. Then immediately act upon it when elected.
2. Then – Identify the other extremely over-paid and demonstrably unqualified cohort COT employees – like Cynthia Barber (salary $289,000+) and add them to the action items to address/eliminate. And there are MANY.
Then you will begin to earn the citizen’s interest and votes and THEN you can begin rebuilding the Tallahassee disaster zone. With the FBI’s Assistance, that is.
As Allie (above comment) – or is that ‘Allied’?- pointed out paying for professional experience is one thing; but over-paying pre-chosen unethically based cover-up artists to address managements forth-coming illegalities – is quite a different issue.
The COT employs many professional people. Accountants, biologists, engineer’s, attorney’s, auditors, etc..if you want experience you have to pay for it or otherwise you will pick from the bottom of the barrel!
Allie, judging by the many undeniably corrupt dealings and methods that various top-level COT officials are involved in, along with their many like-minded cronies, lobbyists, and “associates”, the city IS scraping the bottom of the barrel. The FBI is even now combing through the sludge, let’s see what they find.
It’s plainly payola to make sure all that happens in COT government is either approved, overlooked, or “legally” justified, via whatever tortured explanations. Whatever happens in COT, no matter how it may be demonstrably illegal, contrary to city charter rules or laws, or contradict simple ethical common sense, the lady will approve of it. She’s been paid off, straight and simple. We taxpayers are being robbed to pay salaries for those who want legal cover to rob us further.
This pattern in Tallahasse government makes me wonder about the moral makeup of those that COT hires in top positions – you must evidently require a certain “flexibility” of your morality. After all, if you’re for sale, you’re for sale – only the price is in question. I guess if you can look in the mirror and still like and respect what you see, that’s not a problem.
Three Snidely observations:
Liberal organizations are a den of all forms of peversions.
The method of Ms. Jackson’s asumption of Lew Shelly’s old job shows it was pre arrainged a long time ago.
We should all assume Ms. Jackson had grounds to lodge a #metoo complaint against a number of high placed COT oficials, lobbiests, along with a menage of local “usual suspects”.
Congrats on that promo girl!!!
That’s more than the State Attorney, or the Attorney General or the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court make. Is the city attorney job more demanding or does it require greater legal knowledge than those positions, or has the salary become over inflated? If she gets fired for cause, does she get the remainder of the salary under the contract? Why not offer a one year contract and see how she works out? How many other city employees get contracts? Only the ones in charge I’m guessing.
Well it’s really just 10 Uber payments a year if Maddox is the benchmark…..that seems reasonable.
Makes one wonder if she is being paid such a high salary to overlook the indiscretions of her bosses-the mayor and city commission.
This is $56,000 more than the Mayor of Atlanta and Atlanta, by itself, is one of the single largest economies in the world. Something is not right with city salaries.
At that salary she can afford her own health insurance and retirement savings.
She could, but the city will offer her the same health and retirement benefits as regular employees. Not much different than other cities. Also, she may be getting health insurance through her husbands employer