Rocky Top council extends city manager’s contract for five years
Rocky Top City Manager Michael Foster, right, addresses the City Council during last Thursday’s council meeting, during which the council approved a five-year extension of Foster’s contract. Looking on here is Councilman Tony Devaney. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Terms of the contract include a $500 monthly allowance for Foster’s use of his personal vehicle on city business, along with a mileage allowance at the IRS’s published rate for single trips exceeding 50 miles each way.
Foster’s salary will continue at $69,000 a year, and he will receive raises only in the same percentages as are given to other city employees during annual city budgeting. Foster also serves as a District 2 Anderson County commissioner, a position he won in the recent county general election.
The Rocky Top city charter was amended by the state General Assembly seven years ago to change from a strong mayor/council form of government to a council/city manager arrangement, and Foster was hired as the city’s first manager.
He had no contract the first two years because the new charter guaranteed the first city manager two years of employment without the necessity of a contract, Foster said.
During the past five years, Foster’s achievements have included obtaining more than $5 million in state and federal grants for the city, including more than $1 million so far to help pay for necessary improvements to the city’s sanitary sewer system.
Those upgrades are still under way, and will eventually cost the city about $4.1 million. Foster is still seeking more grant money for the sewer system.
Other grants have paid for new police and fire vehicles and equipment, city public works department vehicles and equipment, and other improvements.
One of the grants will bring about reconstruction and extensions of sidewalks in the downtown area as the Tennessee Department of Transportation widens and repaves Main Street through the city.
City Council members tried to approve Foster’s contract extension during their August meeting, but delayed it until September at Foster’s request as he put the proposed contract together for the council to consider.
The council noted that giving Foster a monthly allowance of $500 for use of his vehicle would be considerably less expensive than providing him with a city vehicle for his fulltime use.
Foster’s previous five-year contract included a provision for the city to provide him with such a vehicle, but Foster never took advantage of that provision, and also never turned in any requests for mileage reimbursement, city officials said.