Contract extension for council GM following two hours of deliberation

His position was considered at the February 21, 2024 council meeting as part of the regular general manager's appraisal process.

Mr Sherley's contract was set to expire in July, 2025 and councillors were asked to decide whether or not to extend his contract beyond this date.

Following closed-door deliberations during a confidential session, which took close to two hours, they came to a decision.

The resolution was to note that Mr Sherley's performance review was "more than satisfactory", and to reappoint him for a period of 12 months at the end of his current contract.

That means he will continue to be the general manager until July, 2026.

Prior to the new contract expiring, councillors will have the opportunity to reappoint him again beyond that date if he requests a new contract, or they can opt to advertise the job.

In the event the job is advertised, Mr Sherley can choose to apply for the position and could potentially be reappointed if councillors decide he is the best applicant.

How councillors vote during confidential sessions of council generally remains private, unless they ask for their votes to be recorded.

In the case of the general manager's appraisal, all councillors chose to have their votes recorded publicly.

Community members had requested this transparency during the public forum earlier in the evening after expressing concern and disappointment that a contract extension would be discussed in private.

"Mr Mayor, you and other councillors spoke to better communication and increased community engagement [during the SRV process]," Natalie Cranston said.

"We were also encouraged, if ever there was a time to demand transparency, this was it.

"I'm disappointed that councillors are not being transparent as promised and are holding this item in a closed forum."

The recorded votes showed only five of the nine councillors had voted in favour of the resolution.

Councillors Warren Aubin, Kirralee Burke, Ian North and Andrew Smith did not support reappointing Mr Sherley for a period of 12 months.

Those in favour were mayor Jess Jennings, deputy mayor Ben Fry and councillors Graeme Hanger, Marg Hogan and Robert Taylor.

However, Cr Jennings said, based on the discussion on the night, he has no doubt all councillors believe Mr Sherley is doing a good job.

The way the votes fell, in his opinion, was entirely based on extending the contract at this time by 12 months.

"All councillors expressed their confidence in David Sherley's ability and the way he is delivering the job at the moment," he said.

One of the criticisms raised during the public forum was the timing of a potential contract extension.

Some people felt the decision should have been left up to the new council, following the local government election on September 14, 2024.

But Cr Jennings said this was when the decision needed to be made within the general manger's appraisal cycle.

In addition to that, he said there would be "nowhere near enough" time for new councillors to make an informed decision.

He said the recruitment process for a general manager takes about nine months, start to finish, and given Mr Sherley's contract was set to expire in July 2025, a decision would have had to be made within weeks of the new council term commencing.

Given there will likely be at least one first-time councillor elected in September, they would have to make that enormous decision at the same time as they are learning their own role and how local government works.

"Basically they've got eight weeks and they'd be having to make a decision about the most important position in council, which I think a lot of the new councillors on our current council thought was an unfair position and an irresponsible position to put new councillors in, based on their own experience," Cr Jennings said.

With this in mind, he believes the February 21 resolution of the council was the right call.

"I think this is a sensible decision, a responsible decision, to ensure there is corporate memory, consistency and stability during the election period and in the immediate future after the election," he said.

"The new council will have some amount of time, but not long, to work out which way is up, get their feet under the desk, and they will have to start thinking straight away about whether or not they want to renew the general manager's position should he choose to request another extension."