Nothing says “Bring in the New Year!” like a good dose of oath-giving and contract renewals.

On Monday evening, Decatur’s City Commission will be dealing with both, performing many of the annual housekeeping items that define the structure of our city’s inner circle for the coming year.

Among items on Monday’s agenda (pdf), oaths of office will be given to incoming city commissioner Patti Garrett and reelected commissioner Fred Boykin and the commission will elect its mayor and mayor pro-tem from amongst its own ranks.  And if all goes according to plan, the city will reappoint Bryan Downs of Wilson, Morton and Downs LLC as the city attorney and reappoint all existing municipal court judges.

The first commission meeting of the year also means renewal of the city manager’s contract.

In a letter to the commission, city manager Peggy Merriss proposes a salary for herself of $147,000, “which reflects no increase in base salary from current base salary”, but asks the commission to “consider an increase in base pay not to exceed $160,000″ from now until the end of 2012.

The city manager is also requesting a change in her severance agreement should the commission terminate her employment.  As she explains in the letter, with 29 years of service to her name, Ms. Merriss is well within reach of hitting her benchmark for early retirement.  With that date only a little more than two and a half years away (September 1, 2012), Ms. Merriss is asking that if she were to be terminated prior to that date, that the commission extend her serverance from “one year’s compensation” to “one year or until September 1, 2012, whichever is greater…and count towards years of service credit for retirement purposes.”

Does this request signal that our long time city manager is thinking about leaving city hall?

“As to early retirement, it is not my intent today to apply for or take this benefit….I enjoy my work here and it is a pleasure to worth with such outstanding City Commissioners.  But, because these agreements are really written to apply when the relationship goes bad, I feel I need to protect my long-term financial interests by requesting an amendment to this provision.”