City Council Pays Temps

by Adam Lynch
Jan. 3, 2006

Web exclusive

Jackson's City Council reversed its position over withholding payment to temp agencies this Tuesday. Last month, four members of the council voted to withhold thousands of dollars to temp agencies after Mayor Frank Melton refused to disclose information on temporary workers.

Members voiced concerns over the hiring practices of the agencies, worrying that employees filing through the agencies may not be getting the same rigorous drug and background checks as full-time city employees.

The city paid more than $800,000 for temporary workers in 2006, including employees like Bob Hickingbottom, whose job is to inspect work done by Public Works Division when he is not shilling for the mayor at press events. Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon described the increase of temp employees as usurping council oversight, since information on the temporary employees is not evident from the payroll information City Council receives from the executive.

On Tuesday, the council changed its mind, saying they did not want to burn bridges with the 18 temp agencies doing business with the city.

Mayor Melton played down the concerns over temporary employees, claiming the issue caused him “no pain.”

“I think all of them should go through the same procedures as any employee,” Melton said, though earlier in the year he claimed that temps already went through those procedures, even telling the Jackson Free Press that all temporary employees underwent drug tests. Now, however, the city is saying that is not true.

Later in the meeting, the council faced what has become an annual headache: legal ads.

The city awards an annual contract to a local newspaper to carry its legal ads. Last year, the council chose The Mississippi Link newspaper for the legal ads, but Melton vetoed the award, instead handing it off to The Clarion-Ledger, which he said better suited the city’s needs because it had a larger circulation. The council could not override the veto, and The Mississippi Link successfully sued the city for more than $30,000 in lost revenues.

This year, there is already trouble with the legal ads, even though a contract has not yet been awarded.

“It’s a tie between the Mississippi Link and the Clarion-Ledger,” City Clerk Cedric Morgan informed the council.

“You mean the 2006 bids, right?” Council President Ben Allen asked in evident disbelief.

“No. This is 2007,” Morgan answered.

“We told you guys to bid this thing to a thousandths of a cent, and you’re telling me that they came to a thousandths of a cent?”

“That is correct,” said Morgan.

“I think somebody’s having coffee together,” Allen said. “We’re going to re-bid it. … Let me be candid: We are sick and tired of this.”

Melton changed sides this year, saying he preferred to award the bid to the Link rather than The Clarion-Ledger, which he said had underreported the city’s positive aspects.

“We’ve got $1.6 billion dollars worth of business underway right now, yet we have to sit here and beg them just to mention any of it,” Melton said, adding later that he did “not feel comfortable doing business with people who are ugly to the city. It doesn’t feel right.”

Mississippi Link Publisher Socrates Garrett said he had bid one penny less than the last bid (.049 per word) this time around and that The Clarion-Ledger appeared to have done the same.

“Hell, none of my people are talking to them. I can tell you that much,” Garrett told the JFP.

The council eventually decided to change the ad space to six columns and re-submit the bid, though Allen bemoaned the fact that the city was likely to suffer a lawsuit regardless.

“They’re going to sue us. The Clarion-Ledger is going to sue us if we give it to the Mississippi Link, and if we give it to the Ledger, the others are going to sue us. What is this, a $30,000 award? I mean, come on,” Allen said.

Melton suggested using the city’s own resources to publish the ads, but city legal informed him that some items require independent publication.

“I thought it was the intention of the council to make sure that we did business with minority-owned companies?” Melton asked, before Allen warned him that his comments “could be interpreted as arbitrary and capricious,” if a suit did develop.

Mississippi Link Editor Katherine Dougan said the Link would likely participate in the new bid, but worried that the paper would suffer if it dropped its price any lower.

“Our fear is that a big entity like the Clarion-Ledger can afford to cut its own throat, bid lower and lose money to oust somebody else from the picture,” said Dougan, a former Clarion-Ledger reporter.

 
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