When Weston Wamp was running for mayor in 2022, he suggested to us if he were elected, he would likely change the way some things were done in the mayor’s office.
Earlier this month, during discussion of the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget, Hamilton County commissioners had some questions about the growth in the mayor’s office, whose 10 employees would receive 24% more in the next year than the nine employees did in former Mayor Jim Coppinger’s last budget for fiscal year 2023.
“Modernizing county government was one of Mayor Wamp’s top priorities when he came into office,” Chief of Staff Claire McVay said earlier this month in a statement to this newspaper, “and we have saved taxpayers tens of millions of dollars as a result of our new approach.”
The questions from commissioners came this year even though the staffing in the mayor’s office is the same as that approved unanimously by the commission in 2023, except for the addition of Chief Operating Officer David Roddy.