City manager given 3 percent pay bump

Smithville City Manager Robert Tamble will receive a 3 percent raise, after City Council members gave him top marks in his annual evaluation.

After about an hour of discussion in closed session last week, Mayor Pro Tem Joanna Morgan and council members Bill Gordon and Bennie Rooks voted unanimously to give Tamble, who is about a year and a half into his job, a pay bump, upping his compensation to $103,000 from $100,000, City Secretary Brenda Page confirmed.

The council did not go into any detail about its evaluation of Tamble, but said his performance was “excellent,” the highest possible evaluation.

Council members Scott Saunders and Rhonda Janek were absent from the meeting, as was Mayor Mark Bunte, who is recovering from an accident that left him with multiple fractures in his face.

The absences forced the council to table a proposed planning and zoning variance because Rooks planned to abstain since he is involved with the project.

The present council members passed an amendment to their 20142015 budget to offset a $93,900 shortfall in the general fund with a $275,000 surplus in the utility fund. The excess money from the utility fund will be funneled to reserves.

Much of the unplanned spending in the general fund was because of unforeseen drainage fixes that were needed following the Memorial Day floods, Tamble said at the meeting.

“When you establish a budget you do your best to identify your expenses and revenues, but sometimes contingency items come up,” Tamble said.

The council swiftly approved awarding a bid for administration services for a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant related to the Memorial Day floods to Langford Community Management Services and a bid for engineering services for the same grant that will fund a drainage pond to BEFCO Engineering Inc.