The separation agreement between the City of Junction City and Gerald Smith has been approved by the City Commission and signed by the Mayor.

Smith signed the separation agreement last Tuesday night following the tendering of his resignation. He had seven days to revoke his signature on the separation agreement and did not do so according to Katherine Logan, City Attorney.

Smith received a lot of negative attention following his State of the City address in which he submitted a number of recommendations to help the City deal with major debt and infrastructure needs.

Mayor Mike Ryan commented that one reason for Smith’s resignation was the City’s perception of him.

“He was willing to step out of the way to make it easier for the City to go forward,” Ryan said. “He didn’t want to be a stumbling block for the City.”

Following the approval of the separation agreement the Commission went into a 20 minute executive session. Following the executive session the Commission announced that Cheryl Beatty, Assistant City Manager, will step in as the Interim City Manager.

Beatty was the Interim City Manager following the departure of Gerry Vernon in June of last year up until Smith was hired in October. She will be compensated with a salary increase to $100,000 during her time as Interim City Manager.

That salary increase is more than what she was compensated last year.

“The time requirements are quite large and Mrs. Beatty was working nearly 24/7 every week, evenings, weekends, holidays all of that stuff to do two very large jobs,” Commissioner Pat Landes said. “Her level of compensation was not appropriate for the amount of work and the load that she was carrying. That is the reason for the increase in pay over last time.”

Beatty will have to handle the budget cycle again this year and has an idea of how that will go,”I did spend every weekend and every night working, trying to cover all of the bases, and I don’t think I let much drop so we’re going to try for round two.”

She mentioned that she believes the City is in the same position as it was last year when it comes to the budget and the biggest challenge will be finding funding for street maintenance.

“As a Finance Director it’s going to be a challenge for those hard decisions to be made by the City Commission. That’s where the community becomes involved, recognizing that funding has got to come from somewhere.”

Beatty continued that there are options for that funding but finding the right fit for Junction City will be the challenge.

The search for the next City Manager is expected to begin right away. Mayor Ryan explained that they are supposed to meet with the Austin Peters Group on May 6th.

“That was the group that helped us select Gerald and they’ve already done all of the primary base work. So I’m pretty sure it’s going to be much cheaper to go with them than going with anybody else, but that’s the first thing we need to discover, what that cost is going to be,” Ryan said.

The average time it takes to find a new city manager is between four and five months.