BC Council hiring oversight legal and desirable

Once again displaying his talent for being blindsided, Republican Bossier City Mayor Tommy Chandler squawked as usual ineffectively as the city debated budget control and employee hiring.

At present, the city has Ordinance 76 of 2019 on the books, which (after recent amendment) mandates that except for public safety personnel the City Council give approval to anyone receiving any compensation from the city for employment or contracting. It’s the offspring of a series of ordinances dating back to 2010 that attempts to exert budgetary control to maximize the chances that overspending or spending on unauthorized positions doesn’t occur.

But after the recent exception made for public safety, Chandler wanted more, and apparently in the runup to the meeting went on an offensive to have the Council discard the restriction completely. So, he was flummoxed when councilors shuffled to its scheduled Aug. 15 powwow an agenda item for this week’s (postponed a week) meeting to do precisely this.

His chief administrative office Amanda Nottingham, during the debate to do this, tried to justify the move as legally necessary. She pointed to the city charter wording in Section 4.06(c) that “The Mayor shall have the authority to appoint, suspend, or remove any City employee as provided for by, or under, this Charter or other law.” She also noted that the Charter allowed for Council approval of hired personnel only for department heads and there were plenty of Charter requirements that gave the Council oversight over the budget, and also claimed an outside attorney, attorney general opinions, and judiciary rulings had in various ways determined something like #76 infringed upon mayoral powers.

GOP Councilor Chris Smith rebutted that the ordinance provided an additional layer of oversight, and used as an example a resolution months ago that would have hired somebody for an unbudgeted position that the executive branch in total appeared unintentionally to miss. Additionally, he didn’t see how a two week-or-so delay in hiring for a position would so paralyze the city that it would need immediate filling. (Before Nottingham’s hire, the city languished for months without a CAO and didn’t crater.)

And Nottingham’s legal argument is strained, to say the least. Firstly, the Council is not vetting individuals, but positions and whether these need filling. Secondly, she didn’t give a complete rendition of the relevant charter section, which reads in whole (italics added): “The Mayor shall have the authority to appoint, suspend, or remove any City employee as provided for by, or under, this Charter or other law except as otherwise provided by law, this Charter, civil service or other personnel rules adopted pursuant to this Charter.” #76 by state statute qualifies as an instrument that can make exceptions to unfettered mayoral hiring authority.

As a practical matter, this means even without #76 a mayor doesn’t have much authority over hiring. Budget ordinances spell out the number of funded positions, the particular for each in almost all cases align with other ordinances that govern hiring procedures that exclude direct mayoral intervention (and in the special cases of public safety employees follow additional state rules).

So, Nottingham’s pointing to the Charter as a refutation of the legality of #76 doesn’t fly, and other legal advice in attorney general’s opinions and court cases she alluded to supporting her contention don’t apply. Nor does the supposed outside legal advice she said Chandler obtained matter, which brings up the questions of whether taxpayers ponied up for that and why didn’t any advice obtained come from taxpayer-funded City Attorney Charles Jacobs.

But just because Nottingham and Chandler are all wet on whether the Council legally can do this differs from the question of whether the Council should do this. Administration flows more efficiently without micromanagement by an alternative power center, so the question is whether the minor inconvenience posed by the additional vetting and the potential for disrupting an executive decision concerning resources necessary to carry out its functions outweighs the gain by having an additional check on overspending or unauthorized spending.

Normally, probably not. But this is Bossier City, the biggest small town in America with a history of insider dealings and casual application of the rules contingent on the matter at hand. In this environment, an extra pair of eyes exacts a pretty small price.

Republican Councilor Brian Hammons said he would put forth a resolution to have an attorney general’s opinion specific to this instance rendered, and Chandler also has the authority to do this on his own. That’s a good initial step, and should such an opinion verify the Council’s ability to impose this restriction, it should remain on the books.