Eyewitness News Investigates: City council members react to mayor's temp worker pay deals

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — Some city council members in Charleston said they have lots of questions after a previous Eyewitness News Investigation into payroll record-keeping in the mayor's office.

"When you are a public official I think you have to be above reproach," Democrat Councilwoman Shannon Snodgrass, who represents Charleston's Ward 11, said. "I think this all the way across the board is not right. You can't rectify this. You can't make this sound right. You worked on my campaign, I'm going to pay you this type of salary or fee for service. But yet there's no time record keeping. It just looks terrible."

Snodgrass pulls no punches when reacting to news that since 2019, a special assistant to the mayor and special event coordinator hired through United Talent Staffing together have made more than a half million dollars.

"I have a lot of questions of how in the world we have two temporary workers through United Talent, I know that we have contracts, we use temporary workers all over in different departments," Snodgrass added. "But how these people got paid 40 hours automatic? How they got paid during a pandemic? City hall was shut down month after month for six, seven months maybe and we had other employees, regular city employees that were on furlough, but we worked these people?"

Jane Bostic and Renee Jones both held long-time positions with state government and knew Goodwin before working on her mayoral campaign and joining her staff.

"There's no evidence that they did work all that time," Republican Councilman Adam Knauff, who represents Charleston's 7th Ward, said. "And there's lots of evidence that a lot of other people in the city didn't. So I think they need to explain what they were doing in that time period and how were we furloughing other employees."

Since Goodwin took office in January 2019, Bostic and Jones were paid for 40 hours every week. Never missing a single day, even on holidays.

"You reported, I think that they never took a day off," Snodgrass said. "Not eight hours. Not a sick day, not Christmas with their family, not New Year's, not Thanksgiving, not going to the doctor, got an automatic 40 hours as a temporary worker. I don't know how that happens. I don't know that to have ever happened in any of my corporate world that I've worked in, for sure."

"All right now, let's be clear," Knauff said. "These are two former Goodwin paid campaign staffers that had come on around a hundred thousand, at least one came on around a hundred thousand. And they're the only two people in the city, the only two temporary workers in the city that don't have to have a signed time sheet. There's got to be questions."

For her two plus years in the administration, Jones averaged more than $74,000 annually. Bostic, who is still working for Goodwin's office, is averaging about $98,000.

That's tens of thousands more on average than they made while working for the state.

"One of them even got paid for eight, nine, ten days in Hawaii," Snodgrass said. "These people don't get benefits. It's a fee for service. As a temporary worker, the City of Charleston using taxpayer's money, public funds, we have to, it's fee for service. I saw the response from the mayor. She said that this is a personnel issue. She didn't go on camera. It's not a personnel issue. It's how we spent taxpayers money."

Supporters of Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin, including some members of Charleston City Council, tell us that Jones and Bostic are fantastic workers, that both represent the city well and that the women worked far in excess of 40 hours a week.

But the question is how two highly-paid members of the Goodwin administration were paid tens of thousands of dollars of our money as hourly workers, with no accounting of the hours they worked. We asked several members of Charleston City Council critical of the story to join us to talk about it on camera. So far, they've either declined or not gotten back with us.

"It isn't the issue that these were exemplary employees," Knauff said. "It isn't the issue that they were paid staffers under the Goodwin campaign. It's the fact that they come in at such a high rate of pay and then their pay stubs are not reviewed or signed off on. That's the issue."

"We have temporary workers that work in refuse, that cut our grass in the summer," Snodgrass said. "We have a lot of temp services in and out. That's temporary. These people have worked almost four years, had a different payroll system. They didn't have to sign a time sheet. No one knows where they were, what they did. But yet they made two of the probably most expensive earned income from the City of Charleston and there's no record of what we purchased? How can we, how can we reconcile that?"

In a statement, Goodwin's Chief of Staff, Matthew Sutton, told us the city is going to review procedures on how hours are recorded and employees are paid.

"It is clear that better documentation is needed, and the mayor asked our Human Resources team, along with city attorney to come up with a policy to address better time keeping documentation. We have had policy issues come up. Our philosophy has always been—if it’s not written down, we need to address it, fix it and enforce it in the future," he said. "We had to do this when we learned, at the start of our administration, that the city had no policy for how petty cash was handled, how purchasing cards were issued and used, and other issues related to the efficient and transparent operations of city government. When we identify issues or are made aware of them, we review and address the issue so that we can implement a strong policy. That is how government should operate."

You can read a full statements from the mayor here:

"The contract arrangement between the city of Charleston and United Talent for Jane Bostic and Renee Jones was approved by both the Public Employees Retirement System and the city of Charleston Human Resources Department prior to the start of my administration.

In addition to working nights and weekends on city events such as Live on the Levee, and other events requiring city coordination since early 2019, Jane and Renee both worked almost every single hour on Saturdays during the COVID-19 vaccination clinics held in the city of Charleston and throughout the County. Both also lead the city’s effort to help get citizens signed up for vaccination clinics, ensuring transportation for seniors and making sure all city employees were able to get scheduled for testing and vaccinations. They also took the lead on proactively making phone calls to Charleston residents to check in on them during the pandemic, especially our senior citizens.

Jane Bostic is, without question, one of the strongest assets to the city of Charleston. The work she does every day and has since the day she arrived has monumentally benefited our citizens. From helping to start and manage our new small business outreach program, to the establishment of outdoor dining, to Food Truck Wednesday (previously Friday), and most recently the around the clock work on the Regatta. Jane has tirelessly worked above and beyond for the people of Charleston." - Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin, Charleston, WV