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After a heated discussion during the work session, the Chambers County Commissioners approved renewing the employment contract for County Manager Regina Chambers. The discussion centered around the line item not being on the agenda sent out before the meeting rather than Chambers’ performance as county manager.

Chambers’ current contract will expire on Oct. 30 this year. The proposed new contract would be for a three-year term for compensation at $140,177.23 with a built-in annual raise of 2.5%. However, in the case of a countywide COLA raise, Chambers would be entitled to that rate.

The agendas are sent to commissioners the Friday before the Monday business meeting. The public receives agendas during the business meeting. In the work session, Commissioner Debra Riley requested that the item be taken off the agenda until the next meeting to give her and the other commissioners time to review it. Commissioner Charlie Williams added that the contract had not changed from the last time it was approved.

“I’m more concerned about the fact that this was just thrown on the agenda. It wasn’t sent to us,” Riley said.

Bradford added, “I don’t have a problem with the salary. I would have liked for the Personnel Committee to sit down, or at least, [to have] had a meeting to discuss this.”

County Attorney Skip McCoy said that he had mentioned that the contract was under discussion at the last commission meeting.

“Three weeks ago, I told you that Mr. [Charlie] Williams and I had met with Regina,” McCoy said. “Regina said that she was willing to work for three more years. She’s been working for us for 25 years, and I don’t know how many times that you and Debra and Charlie have had a chance to talk since then about all this stuff that y’all are talking about. But you know, this is the same contract that she had.”

Riley and Bradford said that their issue was not with the salary agreement but with the fact that they did not have the forewarning to review the contract before passing a motion because it was not listed on the agenda that was sent out last week.

“We use committees when we want to use committees, and then we don’t use committees,” Riley said. “We need to be consistent.”

Commissioner Doug Jones and McCoy expressed concern that the discussion might make Chambers feel like they are not comfortable with her salary or performance. Both Bradford and Riley agreed that they were happy to have Chambers as county manager.

“Regina is a wonderful person. I would not have her fired for any reason in the world. But you know, we don’t vote — We vote the way our constituents want us to vote,” Riley said.

“Well, your constituents are going to want you to vote the same way however you vote, whether it’s this week and next week,” McCoy responded.

Williams made a motion to move this issue into executive session. Riley asked that the executive session include only commissioners, excluding McCoy.

The item was not taken off the agenda, and during the business meeting, the commissioners unanimously voted to approve the motion.

Riley made a statement during the meeting, addressing the debate in the work session:

“I do not want our debate to be a reflection on our county manager. She is a good person. I can’t give her enough glowing reviews for how well she keeps all of our accounts in order. And we wouldn’t want to get rid of her for any reason in the world, and that was not about her. It’s about procedure. And Mr. Chair, I would just like to ask and remind our staff again to please get all items on the agenda prior to Friday afternoon, because a number of these items were not on the agenda until I looked at it when I came to the commission meeting.”