Former Senoia City Manager, Harold Simmons, investigated for increasing his own salary

Former City Manager of Senoia, Harold Simmons, received a unanimous complaint from the city council for boosting his salary by over 85% during his time as mayor.

This complaint followed an investigation by employment and labor law firm Matthews & Greene into the city’s finances. This investigation found that at multiple points over six years Simmons, who was fired on January 5th, increased his salary. Overall, this resulted in an unauthorized salary increase of over 85% and over $176,000 in extra income from the increases.. 

Simmons filed the salary increases under the broad title, “City Hall-Salaries and Wages”.

These salary increases were not approved by or disclosed to the city council. Although former Assistant City Manager and current County Commissioner, Jeff Fisher, who was also fired alongside Simmons, and former Mayor William “Dub” Pearman allegedly signed documents on undisclosed dates that justified the salary increases. 

Mayor Scott Tigchelaar included at his city council meeting last week that all three had been unresponsive to communication efforts regarding cooperation with the investigation. The complaint was broken down at this meeting. This included further information such as the city-owned cell phones that Simmons and Fisher returned being wiped clean of city data and programs, despite instruction to keep all information on the phones. Simmons’s city phone had been further obstructed, with the complaint including that the phone had appeared to have been struck.

While the investigation is underway, it is being conducted internally rather than alongside the Senoia Police Department. The council intends to recover all funds.