Pearson looks to be next county finance director | Lafollette

Claiborne County Finance Director Eric C. Pearson looks to be the next Campbell County finance director.

The Campbell County FMS Committee voted to make Pearson the next finance director by a 5-1 vote on Monday night.

In responding to a question, Pearson told the FMS Committee that he has never met retiring Campbell County finance director Jeff Marlow, but Pearson said he was interested in making contacts with finance directors of other counties under the County Financial Management System of 1981 while being Claiborne County finance director.

“I have never met Mr. Marlow,” Pearson said. “When I started, one of the things I did was make sure I knew who were the other finance directors in surrounding counties, particularly Act ‘81 counties too, the eastern region, so if I had questions, I could send them an email, call them, reach out to them, to get information because obviously, being new to Tennessee and county government in Tennessee, I wanted to rely on people’s experience and knowledge to help me out. Say, ‘OK, you’re a finance director in an Act ‘81 county. So am I. What would you do with this, or do you know any information on how to address this issue — or what are the rules on this?’ ”

Before Claiborne County, Pearson worked in a number of roles for the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, per his resume, including as budget and management analyst from February 1997 to December 2000, budget and policy manager from January 2001 to December 2018 and budget and fiscal policy operations manager from January 2019 to October 2022.

“That would be one of the things I’d want to talk to the financial management committee about is what is your role currently? What is your relationship? Is the chair of the financial management committee really driving the agenda of the meetings? What information or support do you want to get from the finance director or would like to get? If there’s issues coming up, like you had mentioned at the last meeting, ambulance and outsourcing that, that would be something that if you wanted to look at that as a committee, you’d say, ‘Here’s something we want to look at. Here’s a directive. Gather some information or do some analysis and report back to us.’ But I think the support I’d want is that we could be very collaborative on putting together policies that are in the best interest of the county, residents and businesses of the county and be very open and transparent about the financial condition of the county and policy issues going forward,” Pearson said. “And schools are a good example. If there’s going to be financial challenges facing the school, while the financial management committee won’t be directly involved, the county is involved because you adopt the tax rate for the schools. So I’d think there would be a lot of discussion there and transparency about how we want to approach it, what do we want to look at and what are our options. It’s really a partnership. The finance director reports to the financial management committee, so I’m your employee. And I will go out and do the things you want me to go out and do, in terms of looking at policies or issues or gathering data, and if you basically say, ‘hey, we want you to go out and do some research on something or give us regular reports on these things,’ that’s the things I would want to do. But it needs to be a mutually collaborative relationship.”

Campbell County Mayor Jack Lynch, Campbell County Director of Schools Jennifer Fields and County Commissioners Dewayne Baird, Johnny Bruce and Dewayne Gibson voted yes.

“I’m looking for the best-qualified person, period, which I always say you always look at the education, the experience and the ability to adapt to situations and being able to get along with people,” Lynch said. “That’s my short list, I guess, on hiring anybody. I want you to lead us in the right direction, keep us all legal.”

Road Superintendent Ron Dilbeck was the lone no vote.

“Open communications, I know that’s very important to Jennifer,” Lynch said. “She needs more information daily or weekly.”

Commissioner Mike Douglas was absent from the meeting.

“Obviously, we have a good finance department, but I want somebody that’s going to come in and say, ‘OK, hey, we can save money here, even though it’s not what we’ve always done. We can save money here. We can do it. It’s not part of the good old buddy’s system.’ Even if it makes some people mad, hey, it makes people mad,” Baird said. “Even if, like I said, it’s not the most popular decision, we’ve got a great finance department. So I think it’d be a smooth transition to whomever, but anybody can find a flaw. Nobody’s perfect.”

Baird made the motion to make Pearson the next finance director, and Bruce seconded the motion.

The hire is pending a background check.

Bruce made a motion to set Pearson’s salary at $100,000 annually, plus longevity pay, with a bump up to $105,000 annual salary in the event of a good evaluation after the first year of work.

The FMS Committee unanimously approved this measure.

Pearson and Pugh CPAs Staff Auditor Brandon R. Walters, the two finalists for the county finance director position, went through a follow-up interview with the FMS Committee on Monday night.

The four semifinalists — Pearson, Walters, Campbell County Finance Department Deputy Director/General Ledger Supervisor Karen Henegar and Tennessee Valley Authority Regulatory Oversight and Reporting Analyst Peyton Webb — were each interviewed last week.