No Decision Yet on New Hart County Administrator Position

One item not on the Hart County Commission’s agenda tonight is the continued search for a new County Administrator.

Former County Administrator Jon Caime resigned last May and since then the search for his replacement has been a slow process.

One reason for the delay had to do with finalizing the County’s Fiscal 2017 budget.

The search for a new administrator was put on the back burner so the Board could concentrate on putting the budget together.

That process also hit several hurdles and wasn’t finally approved until well after the October 1st deadline.

During that time, however, the County began advertising for the Administrator’s job and on December 13th, Commissioners met with the top four candidates.

One of those candidates dropped out the next day, according to Commissioner Joey Dorsey and three finalists were left and their names were released.

On December 22nd, the Board voted to ratify the top three finalists.

Commission chair Ricky Carter then requested a called meeting for December 27th to officially announce the new administrator.

But Dorsey says the names of the three finalists were released without the Board taking a vote, which he said caused issues with the State-mandated 14-day waiting period.

“Once you get down to the top three, you have to release those names,” Dorsey said. “However, there was no vote by the Board of Commissioners when those names were released. The position I took was until the Boards votes on the three, the 14-day clock doesn’t start. Therefore, there could be no called meeting on the (December) 27th to discuss it. It would have to be 14 days after the Board voted and the Board voted on the 22nd to ratify the top three, and that would take it into 2017.”

Dorsey says he doesn’t know when the Board will make their official decision on a new administrator.

“I don’t know. I’m going to bring it up. It will be discussed at some point, but it will be discussed in executive session under personnel,” he said.

The three finalists include Interim County Administrator Terrell Partain who also serves as the County’s EMA Director, Cliff Wilkinson who is from Milledgeville, and Alan Grindstaff, who is the current County Administrator in Worth County, Georgia.