Cookeville City Manager James Mills received a raise and positive feedback from his annual performance review report.
City Attorney Dan Rader presented the report to the council at their Thursday meeting. He said that in independent reviews from City Council members, Mills received an average 95 percent rating.
Mills said that his job would not be possible without the help of city employees.
“If there’s a better group of department directors in the state of Tennessee and the country I don’t believe it,” Mills said. “Because I’m so blessed to work with these guys and gals because it makes my job a whole lot easier to know that I can depend on them to get their jobs done.”
Vice Mayor Laurin Wheaton motioned to both accept the report from Rader, as well as raise Mills’ salary to some $152,000. The motion passed, with councilman Mark Miller saying he accepted the motion because of Mills’ dedication to being an advocate for the city’s employees.
“I can’t tell you how big of an advocate he is for the city employees,” Miller said. “All those raises and everything the city employees have gotten it’s because James has worked with Brenda and really worked hard to get those raises for our city employees. That’s one reason why I feel comfortable with giving Mr. Mills a raise is because he has been able to help all our city employees.”
Councilman Eric Walker said he appreciated Mills’ skills as a leader.
“Leadership is found in times of crisis,” Walker said. “We’ve certainly been in that a few times in the past two years. And you’ve done a great job leading us and leading our city and all your work as city manager has been outstanding, so thank you very much.”
Mills has served as Cookeville’s City Manager since Mike Davidson left office in 2019.
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