Commissioners Hire New Employees to Aide Positions

BRADENTON – Manatee County Commissioners have completed the hiring process to fill existing vacancies in commissioner aide positions. Commissioners have chosen three new hires, bringing the total commissioner aide positions back up to four full-time employees.

 

Across most of its departments and impacting many positions, the county government has experienced an unprecedented amount of reorganization, change, and turnover since the beginning of 2021. Much of the county's reorganization efforts were spearheaded by the county's former Administrator, Scott Hopes.

 

Following the 2020 election cycle, there were rearrangements to employees who served as executive assistants to commissioners (a position now named "commissioner aides"). When Commissioners James Satcher, Kevin Van Ostenbridge, Vanessa Baugh, and George Kruse were sworn in, there were three employees serving as executive assistants to commissioners. By the start of 2021, only two remained.

 

Mid-way through 2021, another vacancy was created in the position when one of the executive assistants was reassigned to a department elsewhere in the organization. By the end of 2021, four "commissioner aide" positions were created to take place of the previously titled "executive assistant" positions. The aide positions were filled by Natasha Harpel, Deborah Wing, Theresa Woods, and Jorge Arana Villar.

In 2022, Woods took a position within another department, and Wing–who served as the aide to former Commissioner Carol Whitmore–was terminated after Whitmore lost her bid for reelection.

The vacancies left commissioners shorthanded, with only two aide positions filled to serve seven commissioners. During a January 2023 work session, commissioners began to press the then-county administrator, Hopes, as to how far along the process had come toward filling the open positions.

 

During the work session, Commissioner Baugh expressed a desire that commissioners be more directly involved in the aide hiring process, and be given access to the resumes and interviews of applicants. Baugh’s position that commissioners should have more direct involvement in the process readily gained the support of fellow board members. The board agreed to direct the county attorney to draft a resolution placing oversight for the hiring of future aides into the hands of commissioners. In addition, the resolution would switch supervisor authority over the aides to commissioners.

Commissioner Ballard offered that along with the prioritization of filling the vacant aide positions, there should also be a priority that commissioners are able to hire aides they "can know and trust." Ballard added that she would like to see aides' functions broadened to include acting as communication liaisons between commissioners and the administration and department directors.

 

In the past, commissioner aides–or executive assistants as they were once called–were county employees under the supervision of the county administrator. With the adoption of Resolution 23-023 in January 2023, applicants hired to the position of commissioner aides would be interviewed, hired, and have their salary set per the commissioners’ directions. The aides would remain under the department of the administration and be subject to the same personnel policies of all county employees as adopted by the board.

 

Resolution 23-023–click here to read–includes that, "Commissioner Aides will be deemed regular employees of the administrative branch of County Government. Supervisory authority over the Commissioner Aides shall be assigned to the individual Commissioners in a manner not inconsistent with Florida Statute 125.01(3)(a). Such supervisory authority may include but is not limited to, the assignment of tasks, authorization of leave, approval of timesheets, and evaluation of performance. The process for hiring is facilitated by the administrator, but the determination of which applicants would be hired would be a decision of the commissioners. Likewise, the budgetary considerations, such as how many commissioner aides would be sought, would also be a commissioner's determination."

 

As of January 28, each of the three vacant commissioner aide positions has been filled. Jorge Arana Villar–who serves as commissioner aide solely to board Chair Van Ostenbridge–remains in his role. Natasha Harpel, who previously held an aide position, appears to have been reassigned elsewhere within the organization.

 

The newly hired commissioner aides include Kelli O’Malley, who serves as an aide to Commissioners Satcher and Bearden, Dana Summers who is an aide to Commissioners Baugh and Kruse, and Joshua Emerick who serves as an aide to Commissioners Rahn and Ballard.

 

At the last meeting where the resolution concerning aides was presented by the attorney and adopted by the board, the discussion revolved around creating a framework that would place the chairman’s aide, Jorge Arana Villar, as "lead aide" overseeing all commissioners' aides. For each pair of commissioners who would be sharing an aide, one commissioner per pair would be the designated "point person" for such things as timesheets, absences, evaluations, etc., to avoid aides reporting between split equal supervisors.

To replay the meeting discussion from the Jan. 31 BOCC regular meeting concerning the adoption of the commissioner aide resolution, click the video below.

 

Per the county's job posting, the commissioner aide position has minimum qualification requirements including a Bachelor’s degree in public administration, political science, business administration, or related fields, two or more years of experience providing research, technical, and/or administrative support to an elected official or similar role, or a comparable combination of education, training, and work experience that may be substituted for the minimum qualifications. The pay range for the position was advertised as $43,200.00 - $64,800.00 annually, plus benefits.

 

According to his LinkedIn, Villar, who was hired as an aide in September 2021, attended Sarasota’s Pine View School and is a graduate of the University of Florida. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Studies with a minor in Latin American Studies. Besides his year and a half serving as commissioner aide in Manatee County, Villar came with four months of prior experience from the City of Sarasota as an emergency management assistant as well as prior experience as the campaign manager of a former school board candidate. Villar’s base salary is $49,088–or $23.60 an hour.

 

Joshua Emerick, the aide to Ballard and Rahn, is a graduate of Roosevelt University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science/Public Policy and Business. He also earned a Master of Arts in Ministerial Leadership from Southeastern University. According to his resume, Emerick’s prior work experience includes a year as an implementation specialist for Engage PEO, six months as a rapid housing case manager for the Jewish Family & Children's Service of the Suncoast, eight months as an outreach coordinator at the Salvation Army of Manatee, roughly four years combined experience across four different employers as director of onboarding, a client services specialist, and as an account manager. His resume includes management positions between 2013-2016 as an assistant store manager at Walgreens and as a manager of a Chick-fil-A restaurant. From 2012-2013, he worked as a deputy clerk of court in Union County’s 13th Judicial Circuit Court of Arkansas. Emerick was hired with a base salary of $49,088–or $23.60 an hour.

Kelli O’Malley, the aide to Bearden and Satcher, was most recently CEO of a local crisis pregnancy nonprofit organization, Care Net Manasota. According to the Friends of Care Net Manasota website, Commissioner Bearden’s wife serves on the nonprofit’s advisory council. In April 2022, prior to being elected to one of the county commission's at-large seats, Bearden shared a public video on Facebook encouraging individuals to donate to Care Net during its Giving Challenge fundraiser.

 

In July 2021, Commissioner Satcher proposed the board support a motion to grant $50,000 in county funding to two nonprofits, Manasota Care Net and SOLVE Maternity Home. When SOLVE learned of the board’s action, it declined the unsolicited offer of public funds. In March 2022, Satcher proposed that the previously approved $50k each to the two identified nonprofits, be combined as a $100,000 grant to Care Net alone.

 

Though the motion was somewhat controversial among the public due to the organization being targeted for public funding outside of any standard committee approval process for funding nonprofits, the board unanimously approved Satcher’s motion. However, by April 2022, Kelli O’Malley, then CEO of Care Net, wrote a letter to the board declining the approved funding over proposed contractual agreements for acceptance of the funding.

 

In a public post on her Facebook account, O'Malley announced her last day as CEO of Care Net on January 6, 2023–three weeks prior to officially being hired as commissioner aide to Satcher and Bearden. O’Malley’s application stated that she had served as CEO of Care Net since October 2019, and cited her reason for leaving her role with Care Net as, "To have work-life balance and to also continue with my FRS until retirement."

 

O’Malley does not hold a Bachelor’s Degree, but prior to her work with Care Net, her resume includes 15 years of experience in job positions relating to payroll, employee benefits, billing, and as a medical assistant. From 1992-2004, she worked as a case manager and legal assistant in child support enforcement. Like Villar and Emerick, O’Malley was hired as a commissioner aide with a base salary of $49,088–or $23.60 an hour.

 

The third hire, Dana Summers, aide to Commissioners Kruse and Baugh, enrolled in community college but did not earn a degree. Despite not obtaining a degree, Summers’ resume shows a significant amount of relevant experience, including having formerly served as a commissioner's aide in another Florida county just prior to applying for the role with Manatee County.

 

From Nov. 2018 until Nov. 2022, Summers reported on her application as having served in the role of commissioner aide and administrative coordinator for the Seminole Board of County Commissioners. Prior to that position, she worked for four months as an executive secretary for the Seminole County School District. On her application, Summers’ cited her reason for leaving her position with the Seminole School District to take a job with the county’s commission was due to being "asked to go work for a county commissioner who was a former school board member."

 

From 2016-2018, Summers worked at Sarasota Memorial Hospital as an Administrative Assistant in Integrated Case Management. From 2015-2016, Summer listed employment with Manatee County Public Schools as the Executive Secretary to the Executive Director and CFO. Prior to Manatee County Schools, Summers reports having worked 12 years for the Seminole County School District as the Executive Secretary to the Deputy Superintendent.

 

Though Summers did not meet the minimum requirements for the commissioner aide position by holding a Bachelor’s Degree, her extensive and relevant secretarial and public/private administrative experience met the standard to be substituted for the minimum degree qualifications. Due to her prior professional experience, Commissioner Baugh offered Summers the position at a starting pay above the position's mid-range.

 

Public record emails obtained byTBT showed an employee of Manatee County's HR Department was seeking a "memo" authorizing the above mid-range starting salary for Summers and was advised, "Please use this email as documentation. Her pay rate is a Commissioner Baugh directive based on Dana Summers’ experience."

 

In accordance with Baugh's directive, Summers was hired to the aide position with a starting base salary of $54,999–or $26.44 an hour compensating for her previous work experience.

 

Each of the commissioners’ aides' contact emails and phone numbers is now publicly available on the Manatee County Government website under the county commissioners tab. Information for contacting your county commissioners and/or their aides can be found by visiting: