Thomas Whitley, who was the Chief of Staff to Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey, has taken a new job with the City of Tallahassee.
Whitely recently accepted a position as the Director of Strategic Innovation. The position became vacant during the recent city reorganization.
Christian Doolin, who joined the City in 2016, was the city’s first Director of Strategic Innovation. He is now the Assistant City Manager responsible for the areas of Financial Services, Grants and Enterprise Resources, Procurement, Resource Management, Strategic Innovation and Technology and Innovation. His salary increased from $137,773 to $199,500.
Whitley’s starting salary in the new position is approximately $130,000. He was making $94,000 as Mayor Dailey’s Chief of Staff.
The job was posted on April 25, 2022.
The position required a master’s degree in public or business administration, or a related field and five years of professional experience in business consulting, process improvement, planning, and/or management areas; or an equivalent combination of training and experience. Three years of the required experience must have been in a supervisory capacity.
Whitley’s local government career began in April 2018 when he was hired as the aide to then Leon County Commissioner John Dailey. When Dailey was elected mayor in 2018, Whitley became Dailey’s Chief of Staff.
Before his position with Leon County, Whitley was the Assistant Director of the Office of Graduate Fellowships and Awards at Florida State University from June 2016 to March 2018.
Whitley has several higher education degrees, all related to religion.
He has PhD in Religions of Western Antiquity from Florida State University (2011-2016), a Master of Arts in Religion and a Master of Divinity from Gardner-Webb University (2007-2010), and a B.A. in Religion/Religious Studies form the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (2003-2006).
The City’s Director of Communications told TR that Whitley was one of four people who were interviewed for the job.
Mayor Dailey’s Chief of Staff Accepts City Job, Pay Increase added by Steve Stewart on
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Do you think maybe he has friends in high places? Nobody else had a chance, regardless of experience.
Whoa! First of all their salaries, especially for this local area are inflated! Next Whitley has zero education that would make him qualified. In addition, “Whitley was the Assistant Director of the Office of Graduate Fellowships and Awards at Florida State University from June 2016 to March 2018.” – not even a full 2 yrs in that position. As a PhD myself and I won’t go into details, but I would be more qualified for this position than Whitley – I smell graft and favors! Please, someone with more of a voice in local politics than me – speak up! Are we ever going to weed out corruption from Tallahassee politics? And Gillum was just indited on 21 counts of fraud. What a stinking mess!
This is Mayor Dailey’s new “campaign manager” disguised as a city official paid for by taxpayers. Reese Goad and Dailey are desperate to win at any cost.
Reese and Dailey need to show why this position was needed, how they are going to pay for it, and what benefit it is to taxpayers.
Erwin, Steve, anyone going to question is?
Well Jack porter and Matlow surely called Dailey and Goad out on this; and Steve with all honesty the Democrat article has 5x the smack-down power. Looks to me like Dailey just lost this election…; tell us more of the City’s obscene salaries and another 5 PER CENT pay raise!
In all honesty, TR broke this story before any other media outlet. Our first story provides much more info than TD’s first story. We will have a follow-up on what happened at the commission meeting.
Whooee! Matlow and Dozier’s cronies are all up in this.thread talkin crap. What is a push poll? Can the matlow / Dozier campaign staff pretending to be real citizens Campaign splain to us?
The FBI ended their Tallahassee corruption nvestigation way too soon.
These are all patronage jobs that are created by corrupt people for corrupt purposes. And the fact that Steve Stewart can’t say it, even in his most equivocating way, is a problem for this community. My wife retires in a year… This place is like Sodom and Gomorra on steroids.
Corruption knows no end.
Until we re-introduce running out of town on a rail, or tar and feathering, this will continue to get worse.
“City budget staff are predicting a shortfall in revenues this year and a $4 million deficit in Tallahassee’s 2023 budget”.
TD – June 8, 2022
The mayor gives $27 million of infrastructure funds so his cronies and high-dollar contributors won’t have to be assessed fees for their Sky Boxes to be renovated. Where is the mayor’s plan for people on the southside on septic tank to be hooked up to city sewer?
You only have to look at the fiscal irresponsibility on the way Mayor Dailey and David Bellamy spend their campaign contributions. They hired firms in another city to conduct a push poll which basically twists their non-accomplishments into accomplishments in a sadistic way.
David Bellamy even goes so far as to Gaslight his opponent in the push pole. He falsely accuses his opponent of doing a push poll when he has spent $6,000 in a Gaslighting push pull on his opponent.
Mayor Daley simply cannot lead. He spends every waking moment of his day implementing schemes for his next re-election campaign and does not focus on what he took an oath to do.
With these upgraded excessive high salary positions at the city he is buying loyalty and fortifying his fiefdom. “Let them eat cake.”
I don’t know how this position is even needed at the city. Citizens should be outraged! And they will show it when they vote Dailey out.
BTW, thanks for the paid political mugshot of Mayor John Dailey: Leadership you can trust (with an Infiniti). What a load of garbage.
In a previous story about him, either here or in the Tallahassee Democrat, this Whitley guy claims to be fluent in something like five or six “dead languages.” Question: How do we know he does? They’re dead languages. It’s not like we can go find some Jebusites or Hittites to confirm that he does. Why not claim to be fluent in 50 dead languages? Nobody’s going to know, right?
Can someone tell me how a CoS makes $137k? Which is the same as THREE city comms?
What the actual f*ck.
Do ya’ feel gored yet?
It is an election year and all you will get out of it is more pain and more goring. Isn’t the little turnstile of non profit cronies, the politically connected, a school system with mixed up priorities, the blueprint mavens continually feeding at the public trough wonderful?
Remember, all of these people full throatily endorsed Biden for President and you got inflation, high gas prices, crime, food shortages, world conflict and absolute morons running the show. God help us.
Another incredible insult to the taxpayers from the Dailey/Bellamy outfit. The previous occupant of this do-nothing job was completely out of his depth and was given even more responsibility, and a $50k raise. Now the Mayor’s Chambercrat circle is helping themselves to even more.
This is a Scott Maddox-level case of City Hall graft. Perfectly legal, but just wrong on so many levels and a disservice to the public who pays for this nonsense.