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Century Council Stops Mayor From Paying Pandemic Time And A Half; One Councilman Suggests Employee Layoffs

Century Mayor Henry Hawkins thought the town’s essential field employees — those that are keeping the water, sewer and gas operations running — deserved pay for time and half for their hard work during the COVID-19 pandemic. He upped their pay for one week, but the Century Town Council put a stop to it because they did not approve the expenditure.

During a telephone conference call council meeting on April 6, Hawkins told council members about his plan and his reasoning, but it appears council members did not hear all of what he said due to noise on the call. (A transcript is below.)

During this week’s council meeting, council members debated employee options, unemployment pay and their understanding of various government orders related to employees during the pandemic.

“My suggestion is call them off, tell everybody to stay at home. That means they’ll be laid off; they qualify for unemployment,” council member Luis Gomez said. “And we stop until everything gets back right. Let them draw unemployment…cause they going to get more than they normally get anyway. If you don’t need them, let them go home.”

The other four council members expressed strong objections to any layoffs.

“There’s going to be certain workers that are essential, so we can’t shut down our government,” council member Ben Boutwell  replied.

“I don’t think that is a reasonable suggestion,” council President Ann Brooks added with agreement from James Smith.

“If it was me and I was a city of employee of Century, I would choose to go home and protect my safety and my life and draw whatever the larger than usual employment was,” Gomez responded. “I think that the workers should get that choice too.”

With no council motion or action regarding the potential layoff of employees, the council returned to discussion of the time and half pay approved by the mayor.

“A decision was made about employee pay that never came to the town council. It was made outside, and that doesn’t happen. That kind of decision needs to come to this council before it is every told to any employee,” Brooks said. “That does not need to happen again.”

“I agree,” Gomez remarked. “But now that we are here, where to we go from here.”

“You were taken care of this week,” Boutwell said, referring to addressing employees about the week of time and half pay. “But now the council is saying, no that’s not right. It’s not right that we have to be put in this position.”

Boutwell made a motion as suggested by Brooks to “allow the employees to keep what was given to them wrongly but that they get their regular pay in the future”. Smith seconded the motion. It passed 4-0 without a vote from Gomez. He had warned that his phone battery was low and apparently dropped off the call before the vote.

The employees remain eligible for overtime just as before the pandemic.

What did the mayor say?

Minutes approved the council this week contain an incorrect direct quote of  a statement purportedly made the mayor during an April 6 telephone council meeting.

The minutes (pictured below) quote Mayor Henry Hawkins as saying, “Since the Governor has issued a shelter in place order and only mission essential personnel work, I have stated to the employees in the field that we will work on water leaks and the sewer plant. Everything is not mission essential (i.e. lawn mowing, baseball field maintenance). Because they are working I think it’s fair that we pay them time and a half instead of being off and getting paid for 40 hours.”  (Editor’s note: The parenthesis and items contained within were typed as such in the minutes.)

The minutes continue, “However, none of the Council heard this statement due to technical difficulties.” It wasn’t made clear how the clerk that typed the minutes knew the no council member heard the mayor.

But while the quote approved by the council reflected the gist of what he actually said, the direct quote typed by the clerk in the official minutes was incorrect.

NorthEscambia.com reviewed the mayor’s statement in a recording of the April 6 telephone meeting:

“Since we are in this pandemic and they’ve declared that only mission essential personnel be at work, we have reduced the staff in the office,” Hawkins said and is clearly audible on the recording. He continued, with noise from other phones making it increasingly difficult but not immediately impossible to understand.

“And the guys in the field are working on water leaks and the sewer plant. So,” he said.

“Could everyone please put your phones on mute please? Thank you. Go ahead mayor,” Council President Ann Brooks interjected after some background noise.

“We are not doing business as usual. We are working on water leaks and the sewage plant. Everything else is not mission essential…mowing the yards and that kind of stuff until this is over with,” Hawkins said as background noise on the phone call  increased. “And I think (inaudible) because they are working (inaudible) pay them time and a half otherwise they will go home and get paid for 40 hours,” Hawkins said in a portion of the recording that had a lot of background noise. Portions at the end of his statement were very difficult to understand without the playing the recording back multiple times and probably were not understandable during the phone call.

NorthEscambia.com photo and image, click to enlarge.