Mathews County administrative personnel dealt with extraordinary circumstances during the past year, leading the administration to award them bonuses at the end of 2022.
Mathews County Administrator Ramona Wilson said that she had requested and been granted a total of $24,000 in bonuses for employees. She said she did not receive a bonus herself.
The bonuses came from the administrator’s contingency fund and were related to a time when a succession of county administrators resulted in extra duties falling on some employees, said Wilson, with these extra duties sometimes requiring that they work longer hours.
A look back at the past year and a half shows that, after July 31, 2021, when former County Administrator Mindy Conner retired, there was a turnover in county administrators that led to staff working under four different administrators before Wilson took over the job in early April 2022.
Former James City County Administrator Sanford “Sandy” Wanner became the interim county administrator after Conner left, and he unexpectedly resigned after just four months, on Monday, Dec. 7. Mathews Library Director Bette Dillehay stepped in to help out, but her tenure ended a month later, when a new board was seated and David Schlosser was appointed interim county administrator. He served from Jan. 6 to March 22, 2022, after which County Attorney Andrea Erard was given the authority to sign documents and checks, oversee personnel, and take other actions normally taken by the county administrator until Wilson stepped into the job. In the meantime, former Deputy County Administrator Julie Kaylor, who was the repository of the administration’s institutional knowledge, resigned.
Wilson emphasized that the bonuses were not for Christmas and were not Covid-related, but had to do simply with the circumstances staff found themselves in and resulting work that went “above and beyond the call of duty.”
Supervisors’ chairman Dave Jones said that staff members had done their jobs “under a lot of adverse situations.”
“Good job to the staff,” he said. “We’re happy to have the staff we have in place now. I’m proud to have them.”