Thousands paid before WR Council approval – Has Terminus been operating as WR City Administrator?

In August of 2017, Warner Robins Mayor and Council voted to approve creating a city administrator position, and the ordinance did not go into effect until December 31, 2017.

The ordinance states the city administrator shall be the chief administrative officer of the city appointed by the mayor and council. They will also answer to the mayor and council as well as serve as the immediate supervisor for each of the department heads. It does not state what the salary will be or if they will be full time or part time.

Since 2017 a city administrator has not been hired, and in June of 2019 Councilman Daron Lee brought forth the discussion during the June 3, 2019 council meeting that the city needed to move forward with the position.

“This position was approved in 2017 and we have not moved forward on it,” Lee said in June 2019. “I do believe we really need to pursue this. Let’s be honest; things are not running smoothly around here. Morale is low and you cannot keep suppressing the need for education in this place. It’s important.”

Warner Robins Mayor and Council also approved in June of 2017 a resolution authorizing Mayor Randy Toms to negotiate an agreement with Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC to serve as the financial advisor for potential debt issuance(s) for the city. In the contract it states that Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC, which is based out of Atlanta, Ga., will perform 14 different general municipal advisory services including “Budget planning and analyses and budget implementation issues with respect to debt issuance and collateral budgetary impacts.”

The contract also states Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC will perform 22 different transaction advisory services. Mayor and council agreed at that time to pay the fees of Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC at $1,000 per month. The contract was revised on May 8, 2019 with the agreement amended by adding a “Section I-A Additional requested municipal advisory services after Section I general municipal advisory services,” which included, “Enhanced governance and administration management that seeks the alignment of existing operational resources and staff necessary to meet city mandates and future plans.”

The agreement was further amended in “Section III: Fees and expenses by amending the first paragraph to read as follows: For services hereunder, the city will pay fees as follows: (a) Monthly: $10,000 per month…”

Council did not vote on the amendment until the August 5, 2019 meeting. Toms signed the amended contract on August 8, 2019 and Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC Managing Director David Corbin, signed on August 12, 2019.

Invoices requested through open records by the Houston Home Journal show that Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC was issued payments of $10,000 for the months of May 2019, June 2019, and July 2019. For the month of May 2019 the invoice was dated and billed to the city of Warner Robins on July 12, 2019. The activity on the invoice states, “Financial advisory services: additional amount added to invoice 18225 for revised services contract. Original PO (purchase order) # 43446 for $1,000 per month has been revised to $10,000 per month effective May 1, 2019.”

Councilmen Keith Lauritsen, Larry Curtis, and former councilman Tim Thomas said that they were not aware that Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC were paid $10,000 prior to the council approving the amendment to the contract. Corbin is the advisor for the city through Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC.

“When entering this contract with Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC, Mr. Corbin reviewed a lot for us including different departments,” Lauritsen said. “Typically what he was doing and has done is some stuff a city administrator would do. We don’t have one of those yet, but we are working on it. We felt like we needed additional help because we were in lack of a chief operation officer. He has done a great job and hope to move away from his services, as we are moving toward hiring an administrator. It takes a distinct skill set to run operations of a city our size. This is something that the city is involved in all aspects, not just the mayor’s office.”

Curtis was not on council at the time of the original contract entered in 2017, but voted the approval of the amendment in August of 2019.

“We were in dire need of guidance,” Curtis said. “David Corbin, he was/is sitting in as our city administrator. Last year he did our budget, and I have been told by the other council members and department head directors that it’s one of the best budgets the city has ever had. I believe he is currently working on our new budget now. I was not aware that he had already been paid $10,000 in May, June and July, but that is the normal salary of a city administrator. I have been asking for a long time why we haven’t hired a city administrator since the position was created in 2017. As city council members, we don’t know the day-to-day operations; we only appropriate and legislate. We don’t know information unless it’s given to us. And we don’t get the agendas for the meetings until that Thursday or Friday prior to the meeting, so we really only have the weekend to go over it. We need to figure out a better way to flow the information down to the council.”

Thomas said Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC came about because during a meeting with the city’s auditors in 2017, the council was informed that filings were getting further and further behind. After several discussions, Thomas said the mayor and council agreed to hire Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC to help catch up those filings.

“After Mr. Corbin was doing so, he realized there were more issues,” Thomas said. “He then produced last year’s budget. I had many conversations with him, and in fact, he had to re-do the budget three times because every time it was set, to my understanding the finance department and mayor’s office would give him new figures. We were supposed to take the budget and present it to our districts, but we weren’t even presented the budget until June. That’s when we were really looking into the city administrator’s position because here it is we had a budget that was balanced and didn’t require us to raise taxes. He (Corbin) proved to me we needed someone in there, a city administrator, to handle this large financing budget with the right skill sets.”

Thomas, however, said he was never in favor of paying both a city administrator and a full time mayor.

Newly elected councilmen Charlie Bibb and Kevin Lashley said they did not want to comment on Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC, as they are not fully aware of the contract and services. Bibb said he also did not want to comment as the council just created a finance committee and appointed him as a member. Bibb said they are taking a look into several matters.

Toms noted that Corbin was originally brought to the city by a certain number of council members. Toms said he didn’t know about who Corbin was or what Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC was, but that he was not in favor of the contract.

“I didn’t bring him here, and I was opposed to it to start with,” Toms said.

Toms said he was not sure how Terminus Municipal Advisors, LLC was paid in May, June and July of 2019 before council approved the amended contract in August 2019. Toms said it could have possibly been through another funding source.

According to the municipal code and city charter of Warner Robins stated in Section 2-134 – Sole source procurement: “Any sole source purchase of five thousand dollars ($5,000) or more must be approved by the mayor and council.”

“I do not know right now where the funding came from, it could have possibly come from one of the authorities,” Toms said. “As far as the code Section 2-134, it would depend on if it went through the general fund or authorities because according to Mr. Corbin, Terminus was the first company that actually went through the process. Charles Whatley didn’t go through the process; A2D didn’t go through the process nor Seyfarth Saw LLP. All of these companies that the authorities have used did not go through the process. Up until January 2020, I was not included in what the authorities (Warner Robins Development Authority, Warner Robins Redevelopment Authority) were doing. Even the Woda Cooper Project of Perkins Field did not have my involvement.”

Toms stated to the allegation that Corbin is acting as a city administrator although the city has not hired him as a city administrator was not the intention.

“In fact I have asked Mr. Corbin, are you going to be the city administrator, when council had the majority and he said absolutely not; he didn’t want to be the administrator. He said he wanted to help get things straightened out and then leave.”

Toms acknowledged that there was no end date in the contract, but for him, it could end at any time.

“He (Corbin) has done a better job than some of the others they (authorities) have brought to the table,” Toms said. “Go look at how much Dan McRae and Seyfarth Shaw have made off the city of Warner Robins. Go look at how much Charles Whatley cost and made off the city, and then look see what production we’ve gotten out of those. It’s time for the witch-hunt stuff to stop; I mean, everybody knows what’s going on here. This is not a joke, this is serious city business that needs to be put behind and move on to something better. There needs to be an investigation done in this mess. If I’m the one that is guilty, then I’m the one that’s guilty, but I don’t think that’s the case. Did I sign this contract, oh yeah I signed it on 8-8-19. I need to look at why he was paid before I signed the contract and where the money came from, but also how much have these other people made without knowing, there are serious funding issues going on that we need to straighten out.”

Toms confirmed with Holly Gross, Chief Financial Officer for the City of Warner Robins, that the amended contract was entered on May 1, 2019 and later signed by him (Toms) on August 8, 2019.

“The assumption can be made that council intended to pay them since May for the work they have been doing in the financial advisement area. But again it went to them on August 1 and 2 when the agenda and supporting documents were sent out. Then the approved minutes and supporting documents from Aug 5 meeting were sent out as well. They voted on this, it was sent to them on August 8, 2019. There was also read receipts, from most, if not all of council, but it was in fact sent to them all. For certain members to come back now and pretend that they didn’t know about it is disingenuous. Having known they had the copy and worked with Terminus to come up with the contract; that’s what they intended.”

Former Warner Robins Mayor Chuck Shaheen said he never paid another company to come in and help balance the budget.

“When I was the mayor I collaborated with the CFO (chief financial officer) and the department heads to balance the budget,” Shaheen said. “My first budget, I was told that I was the first to actually meet with the department heads to go over their budgets and they thanked me for allowing them to be a part of the process. I also never spent over $5,000 without getting approval from the council. In fact we changed the limit during my term because the limit at the time was not to spend over $2,500 without council approval. Costs were rising on certain items such as fuel, maintenance on vehicles etc., so council and I agreed to up the amount to $5,000.”

The Houston Home Journal also reached out to councilmen Daron Lee and Clifford Holmes, but they could not be reached.

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