The City Council held a closed session on personnel matters at the Tuesday, Jan. 17 meeting, and the results of that closed meeting were revealed at the very end of the regular meeting, which began at 5:30 p.m.
The closed session began at 4 p.m. and the personnel matter was an evaluation of City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba, who took over the top job in city government on Feb. 1, 2022.
The evaluation evidently went well because the result was that City Councilmember Yvonne Johnson made a motion to give Jaiyeoba a raise to $300,000 a year. Johnson’s motion passed with no comment by an 8-1 vote, with Councilmember Zack Matheny casting the lone no vote.
Jaiyeoba had been hired at a salary of $280,000, so he received a raise of 7.1 percent – much larger than rank and file city employees receive each year.
The vote was a little unusual in that no member of the City Council talked about what a great job Jaiyeoba was doing or why he deserved a 7.1 percent raise. Matheny made no comment about why he voted against the raise.
The City Council has a long tradition of giving the two employees who work directly for them, the city manager and the city attorney, larger raises than rank and file city employees receive.
The salaries for both the city attorney and the city manager have skyrocketed in the past few years.
In 2021, when David Parrish was hired as city manager in 2018, his salary was $194,000. In October 2019, Parrish received a raise to $217,000.
At the Jan. 3 City Council meeting, City Attorney Chuck Watts received a $15,000 raise to bring his salary $260,000 per year. That raise passed unanimously and was also without comment.
Former City Attorney Tom Carruthers was being paid $180,000 a year when he resigned in October 2018. Watts was hired on June 1, 2019 at a salary of $190,000 a year. In March 2022 Watts received a raise of $32,000 to bring his salary to $245,000.
,So since Watts began working for the city in 2019, he has received raises totaling $70,000, or about 38 percent of his original salary.
Well that takes the sting out of the 8 percent decrease for City Employees for six months due to the biweekly pay cycle changes.
Yet a measly 4% for the police and it still doesn’t keep up with neighboring agencies. And no take home cars. City council you suck! But we know you all don’t care.
Actually not just for police, all city employees.
This City Manager has managed to follow the same pattern he had with his previous job. Loss of transparency, disregard for basic rules of order and disdain for the press. Not only should he have not received a pay increase, he should have been put on probation and told that unless he changed his method of operation, he would be dismissed. But, as we know, he is a “special case” because of his race and the makeup of the idiots on the city council. When will the citizens of this city raise up and demand change at the ballot box?
Pitiful…you voted them in and it’s your tax dollars…enjoy.
Are these people serious? There is no way this guy has been here long enough to be thoroughly evaluated and given that kind of raise. This is nothing short of just “being politically correct”. Wow! Hard to believe.
Both the manager and Chuck Watts are way overpaid. I guess Chuck needs the extra money to pay for his rented duplex. Was required by contract to move to Greensboro after he was hired. As of this writing, he has not. City Council is out of control. Term Limits for City Council and manager and city attorney.
Hey! It’s not their money.
I honestly hate to say this, but if your black the council will have your back. Look at the criteria regular employees are graded on and both employees would have been underachieving.
This is what happens when the Left has power. The political Left represents the interests of the state. The political Right represents the people. So the Left enriches and empowers its soldiers at the expense of the people – even when its army is incompetent and feckless. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that the government becomes richer and stronger at the expense of the people.
That is the raison d’etre of the Left.
Term limits.
The Right’s actions do not always represent the will of the people. Term Limit would apply to all politicians. Sharon Hightower would have a difficult time performing most private sector jobs. Term Limits would assure that Ms. Hightower’s time would be finite. If her district elected another Sharon Hightower, which would surely happen, at least it would be a different Sharon Hightower. Who knows, maybe the new Hightower would be less concerned about race and more concerned about the people living in her district.
LOL. The left take care of THEIR people and the right take care of THEIR people. We need a leader who can balance the interests of all.
Question – – And who are “the Right’s people”..?
Answer — The people.
The Left represents the state, the Right represents the people.
You are right! I suggest Dwight Eisenhower or Bill Clinton.
Wow $300,000?? Why was he deserving of a $20,000 raise? City employees certainly deserve more. Shame on you city council.
This is a direct reflection on the people of Greensboro.You deserve exactly what you got with all Democrats on board . Do you think that if the board decided not to give the big raise to this minority that Skip would have been mad because he had just announced that there were 8 people running a department that would have to get another minority to fill the bill of this guy if he decided to leave because of no raise ( I realize that this is Hypothetical,because the leaders for Greensboro are minority and female $ Several years ago I read in the newspaper that one minority said the reason he was on the county commissioner board was to make sure minorities were on that board .I don’t see Greensboro Getty any better because they keep voting in Democrats .
City council does not know how to analyze data; or does not care to use data in decision making. The city manager and city attorney in Las Vegas make less than Greensboro’s manager and attorney. I would argue that Las Vegas City requires more bona fides than Greensboro. Greensboro City Council members are so far out of their element.
Let me add that Las Vegas has more employees than Greensboro and about twice the population. What are the duties and responsibilities that Chuck Watts and the manager have that justifies the pay level they receive from Greensboro’s taxpayers? Note, Watts’ and the manager’s pay comes from the taxpayers not the City Council. This salary increase sets the bar for the next hires.
Why would ANYONE in city government make $300,000? That itself should be telling of how much democrats suck. Tell me again how great everything is, how inflation isn’t that bad, and that we’re not already in a recession and headed for a serious depression. Thanks Democrats. Don’t knock on my door when the generator is running and the freezers are still full.
This sucks. No way the council is justified in giving raises like this.
He deserves to be fired. I don’t see that he has done anything that makes the City a better place to live.
Dems and Lo T republicans sucketh equally!
President of the US salary….400,000. Couple more years he should be in a comfortable position
at these highest levels of people ‘herding’ in our representative gov’t, the top ‘strategy’ developing positions should be held by non-paid, retired, ‘blooded’, ‘veterans’ who r willing to put in ~20 hours/week to cyber manage n communicate n teach the full time ’employees’ ? my confession: i actually am a ‘spammer’ : i luv spam n vienna sausages. please don’t tell my vegan spows .