Rocky start: Three officials depart

In the past week, the county’s top two administrators and the director of planning and development have resigned.

The final day at work for Keith Lee, chief administrator, is Friday. The final day of assistant administrator Michael Fischer is Feb. 20. And planning director Guy Herring is already gone.

The managers did not explain in their resignation letters their reasons for leaving the county’s employment. But from the first week of Yearwood’s administration, when he bypassed county administrators and department heads by meeting directly with all of the county’s employees in two meetings Jan. 7, it was clear that a new era had arrived in county government.

At public commission meetings in January, a couple of the board’s new members asked Lee pointed questions concerning the county’s finances. The final straw appeared to be last week when District 3 commissioner Steve Worley privately requested a letter from a 2005 consultant concerning the county’s implementation of his compensation study for Barrow County’s government. That letter stated that those who did the study never suggested the county aggressively implement a new pay schedule by giving employees large raises over a short period of time.

Both Lee and Fischer said in emails Friday, Jan. 30, that the board of commissioners in October 2005 approved their plan to allow department heads to give employees raises of up to the midpoints of each positions’ new salary range, which resulted in raises of thousands of dollars for most employees within a year or two of the study.

But Lee submitted his resignation on 8 a.m. the next business day – Monday, Feb. 2 – and did not respond to a request for an interview about his resignation. Then on Thursday, Feb. 5, Fischer presented his letter of resignation to Lee.

Neither administrator met with Yearwood prior to making his decision to quit. However, once they told him their plans, he didn’t ask either to reconsider. Yearwood did, however, call a press conference the day after Fischer’s resignation to try to quiet rumors that had reportedly been running rampant among county employees shaken by the loss of Lee, by their recent across-the-board pay cuts and by the board’s vote to have Yearwood look into a new pay study.

Yearwood said he would personally oversee projects Lee and Fischer had been handling.