During their regular meeting Tuesday morning, the Bulloch County commissioners unanimously approved a contract for Christopher D. Eldridge to start work Oct. 6 as the new county manager at a base salary of $225,000 plus $10,000 for moving expenses.
Eldridge will bring more than two decades of government management experience to the role, having most recently served as the city manager for Doraville, just north of Atlanta, for five years. After previously meeting with him in closed session, Bulloch’s Board of Commissioners issued a public statement Aug. 29 announcing that Eldridge was their only finalist for the job.
A waiting period mandated by the Georgia Open Records Act, which calls for release of information on “as many as three” finalists 14 days before a governing board can vote to hire an “agency head” then passed before Tuesday’s action.
Eldridge wasn’t present for Tuesday’s meeting, and one citizen who spoke during public comments time, Lawton Sack, said the commissioners should have been more transparent and given residents a chance to meet Eldridge before hiring him.
Commissioners Chairman David Bennett then spoke to explain that the commissioners and key staff faced confidentiality concerns in contacting and interviewing candidates.
“We’ve been very deliberate in our process of trying to protect the candidates that we interviewed through this process, because the reality of this and what I have learned going through this process is, one, there are not a lot of qualified candidates to work as a county manager,” Bennett said.
He asserted that a more open process, allowing candidates to be publicly identified earlier, could have resulted in some losing their current jobs without being hired here. Bennett also said he had heard “multiple horror stories” over the past nine months about counties failing to find even one qualified candidate who was a good fit locally.
“Now, I understand that there are people that feel like they wanted to meet this person beforehand and things like that, but unfortunately, we live in a representative democracy, so whether you like the people up here or not, they were elected to represent the people of this county, and there comes a point where they have to make decisions, and you’re not always afforded that opportunity to get that public input into this process,” Bennett said.
He added that the commissioners plan to have a public event for people to meet Eldridge, but after he arrives on the job.
“With 27 years of experience in managing local government, Mr. Eldridge has the knowledge, skills, and experience to assist the County Commissioners and staff in making Bulloch County an even better place to live, work, and learn,” Bennett had said in the Aug. 29 release.
Salary comparison
When Tom Couch resigned, effective last November, as Bulloch County manager, his salary was $202,456. He had held the job for 20 years. But after local political upheaval over a property tax increase and economic development projects resulted in public vitriol voiced at many meetings and in three challenger candidates unseating previous incumbent commissioners, Couch left for an assistant county manager post with larger York County, South Carolina.
Since Couch’s departure, two different people have served as interim county manager. The first, Cindy Steinmann, a county staff member for 10 years and assistant county manager for three and a half, did not seek promotion to county manager but remained in the interim role until April 9, resigning for a job in the private sector. Upon Steinmann’s departure, county Public Safety Director Randy Tillman stepped up as interim manager, with a contract that will now allow him to return to the Public Safety Division role he really never left.
Also not seeking the permanent manager job, Tillman instead assisted with the search. He and county Human Resources Director Joleen Orfield and Chief Financial Officer Kristie King, as well as commissioners, took part in the final interviews.
The search had begun in March, with the commissioners and key staff receiving assistance from Dr. Ian Coyle and his Livonia, New York-based search firm Pracademic Partners under a $26,500 contract.
Before his tenure in Doraville, population circa 11,000, Eldridge was the county administrator for Horry County, South Carolina, population now over 400,000, for seven years. He holds a Master of Public Administration from Clemson University and is a credentialed manager with the International City/County Management Association, or ICCMA.
Bulloch County has upwards of 83,000 residents, and the commissioners control a general fund budget with more than $72 million projected spending for fiscal year 2026.
Contract terms
Eldridge’s $225,000 annual starting salary is be paid “in equal installments at the same time as other County employees are paid,” and the one-time $10,000 moving pay must also be reported for taxes, states the now approved contract.
Any future pay raises would be determined by the Board of Commissioners based on an annual performance evaluation. Clauses in the contract specify that it does not promise any pay raises in advance.
But the contract promises Eldridge “access to a properly decaled County vehicle for use when conducting County business,” which could be either the county administrative pool vehicle or an additional one.
With the commissioner’s approval of the contract, the county has also agreed to pay his membership dues in the ICCMA and the Georgia City/County Management Association.
The new manager will start with 80 hours annual paid leave available for vacation and 80 hours annual sick leave and can accrue more leave at the top-tier rate for county employees. He will also be entitled to all the paid holidays.
No moonlighting
But clauses of the agreement state that he “shall remain in the exclusive employ” of the county and “shall dedicate no less than an average of forty (40) hours per week” to his county duties. In fact, if he were to get paid for service on any professional association boards or for serving on any committees “in his official capacity” as county manager, he would be expected to turn any payment or gift he received over to the county, unless the commissioners decided to let him keep it.
The contract states that Eldridge’s employment will be effective Oct. 6, but the contract has no stated length of term or end date. The manager is considered an “at will” employee, so a majority of the commissioners could vote to terminate the contract “at any time, for any reason or for no reason.”
Despite that broad statement, other clauses suggest that dismissing the manager without a good reason could cost the county a significant amount of cash.
Just in case
If the manager were to resign with at least four weeks written notice to the commissioners, the county would owe him a final paycheck for only what was due him to his last day on the job and for any accrued leave.
But if the commissioners were to fire him without cause, he would be entitled to lump-sum severance pay equal to a further six months of his base salary.
As is standard, the county would not owe him any severance pay if fired with “just cause,” such as failure to carry out job responsibilities, a criminal conviction, violation of the ICCMA Code of Ethics or violation of a county policy of the kind that would subject any county employee to termination.
All of those things are part of the just-in-case provisions of the contract.
On a motion from Commissioner Ray Mosley seconded by Commissioner Timmy Rushing, Tuesday’s vote to approve the contract was 6-0, with all commissioners present.
Citizens ‘do not know’
After the meeting, Sack said he hadn’t meant that the applicants should all be revealed and understands some confidentiality is needed, but he believes the commissioners should have brought the finalist here to introduce him to the public before the final vote.
“I don’t know anything about the candidate that’s being brought forward today other than a few Google searches that probably most of y’all have done yourself,” Sack had said to the board. “I know y’all have done a lot of due diligence, but once again I think there was a key piece that was left out of this process, and once again, that’s the people and citizens of Bulloch County. We do not know this candidate.”