Clueless In Escambia County

The Pensacola Beach Blogger noted that “Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan is so mad at county administrator Bob Laughlin that he broke a law of grammar.”

Following up on his “success” with the Sheriff, Bob has created a little problem with the County Commission over hiring a new deputy Escambia County administrator:

County Administrator Bob McLaughlin offered [Cindy] Anderson the job. While she has signed a letter accepting the job, the Escambia County Commission has not yet signed off. The position was eliminated last year. The Escambia commission is set consider the job April 2.

McLaughlin has refused to comment on the position, but county spokeswoman Sonya Daniel said McLaughlin has discussed the position with all five commissioners individually.

Commission Vice Chairman Grover C. Robinson IV said when he spoke with McLaughlin about Anderson’s hiring, he didn’t understand that they were talking about the eliminated deputy administrator’s job. He said he was “shocked” to hear that McLaughlin had made a formal offer to Anderson before further consulting the commission.

“We took that position out of the budget. I looked at the budget (Tuesday), and that is not in there,” Robinson said. “I’m not going to be voting for it. … I’m displeased with the way it was handled.”

Like every other local government in the state, Escambia County has been cutting its budget, and making enemies doing it by eliminating people and programs that have constituencies. Now McLaughlin wants to create a new position that won’t be cheap: “The annual salary at the proposed deputy county administrator job would be $120,000.” [That’s just the salary, and there are benefits that have to be funded.]

Maybe the Commission should consider hiring her and firing him before people start coming to County Commission meetings with torches and pitch forks – meetings at which the regular Sheriff deputies are strangely absent. Just a thought.