Councilman Chris Lane
The Homewood City Council made it official on Monday, hiring Cale Smith to be the first city manager in the city’s 100 years.
“Now he’s official,” Councilman Chris Lane said. Citing Smith’s interviews of candidates for finance director and pending interviews for city engineer, Lane declared, “Our [goal] is being proactive instead of reactive.”
Smith said he is honored to be Homewood’s first city manager. “I appreciate all the time and care you’ve put into making the decision,” he said. “I look forward to continuing to serve.”
Smith left the room during the pre-council meeting when his hiring was discussed. Sam Gaston, the assistant to the city manager, presented the $208,000 salary.
“In my professional opinion, I think the beginning salary is low compared to comparable cities,” Gaston said. “I know that you're looking at possibly a 5% bump up in six months if he has a good evaluation. I think that would help the cause but if you look at what Pelham, Mountain Brook, Vestavia are paying their city managers, this is a little on the low side. Again, Cale is a new city manager, and I'm sure he'll earn additional raises in the future by the good job he'll be doing. I support the contract, although I think it is a little low.”
The council agreed to amend the budget to hire MGT Impact Solutions. The $36,907 was not previously budgeted and is being moved from the general fund’s carryover fund balance to the general fund under professional services.
“Sam [Gaston] and I received three proposals for an organizational study to have somebody from the outside come in and look at our efficiencies and effectiveness across the entire city,” Smith said during the pre-council session. “That seems to be something that functional cities and municipalities, local governments do from time to time. I'm not sure that it's ever happened here. It's one of the things that I wanted to start out with. I think it's going to be a great roadmap for how we structure our departments and our entire city.”
Company representatives will spend about a week in Homewood, meeting with department heads to understand the existing structure, go over job descriptions, meet with employees and then figure out who does what, the new city manager said, saying that the company will make recommendations.
“I don't imagine that whatever recommendations they make are going to happen this year,” Smith said. “I just think it's going to be a roadmap to work towards. I think we would have initial findings prior to the budget hearings over the summer.”
In other action, the council:
- Appointed Bill Johnson to the Board of Zoning Adjustments.
- Approved a reimbursement of $1,138.18 in travel expenses related to an out-of-state candidate for city manager. The cost covered a flight, a rental car and lodging.
- Approved vouchers for the period ending Feb. 10.
The council did not authorize the mayor to sign an agreement with Birmingham, Mountain Brook and Jefferson County regarding the Hollywood Boulevard bridge improvement, which includes pedestrian access.
Mayor Jennifer Andress said that was just a matter of timing.
“Birmingham is voting on theirs tomorrow, [Tuesday] the 24th,” she said. “We're going to let them pass their version. All versions should stay the same but if anything changes, that gives us time until the ninth [of March] to make any changes.
“We're just being prudent in case anything changes on their end,” Andress said. “That'll give us two weeks to make any changes that we need to and vote on that then.”
