Mayor Will Veto City Bonuses

Villa Rica Mayor J. Collins says he does intend later this week, to veto the city council approved $1,001 Christmas bonus for full-time city employees and $500 bonus for part timers. Collins says he will instead recommend a $500 bonus for the full-time staff only. “We budgeted for a $200 Christmas bonus for our employees. The council voted to approve 5x the budgeted amount, plus one dollar. I just think that’s not being a good steward of the people’s money,” he says. “We have employees that deserve far more than that and I believe we probably have some employees that don’t deserve that. To award that type of monetary bonus without any merit or based-on-performance is just irresponsible in my opinion.”

Collins says it has long been his intent to give a Christmas bonus in 2011, but then come up with a good evaluation tool before the end of the current fiscal year and consider performance-based bonuses for the future. “If the budget is holding true and our revenues are up, not only can we look at doing a performance-based bonus, but also, there’s no reason we can’t roll that millage rate back. If we’re going to burn through over $100,000 in cash giving a Christmas bonus, at what point do we not say ‘well, hmmm. Imagine that we could roll that millage rate back.’”

Should council over-ride the mayor’s expected veto, a special meeting would then be called to re-consider Christmas bonus pay-outs for 2011.