The Augusta Commission met in executive session on Feb. 22 and later voted in public unanimously to appoint Takiyah A. Douse, the longtime director of Central Services, as interim county administrator.
Commissioners agreed to set Douse’s salary at $190,000 with a $600 automobile allowance, which is $50,000 less than the city is paying outgoing City Administrator Odie Donald Jr.
Douse, a graduate of Troy University, began her employment with the city of Augusta in 2008. She started in the Tax Commissioner’s office as director of the motor vehicle division. In 2016, Douse was promoted to director of the Central Services Department.
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The Central Services Department, created in 2016, is in charge of the Augusta 311 system, building maintenance, records retention and fleet services.
Since her appointment to Central Services, Douse has spearheaded the Green Augusta Initiative, which is currently working on phasing in electric vehicles moving away from gasoline vehicles.
A native of Hephzibah, Douse was chosen over deputy city administrators Tanika Jackson and Charles Jackson. Both deputy administrators were hand chosen by Donald and have been with the city less than a year.
Donald submitted his resignation in early February after just over a year on the job and will work his last day on Feb. 25.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at [email protected]
hummmm….wonder why they pay a lady less than the man she replaces ??? ……….
She is local which in my opinion is a step in the right direction. Bet Donald’s two picks will move on.
This lady is a step in the wrong direction.
Says a lot about Odie’s handpicked deputy directors. Will she answer the questions being asked; or, is she going to toe the party line? We shall see. What actual accounting experience does she have?
She seems to have done a good job since she started. Give a homegrown talent a chance. I would say with her years of experience with this government, she would be the much better choice than Odie’s choices.
Only one question…..$600 a month car allowance? Does she only work out of her car?
I hope she has enough spine to represent the best interests of her employers (us) and the smarts to operate the county as a business and not the mayor’s and commissioners’ personal fiefdom.
Corruption and incompetence rule the day;
OH boy. This is the lady I caught in an outright lie when I dealt with her back during the film office days. This was when the film rules that we were promised would not happen, were put in without any local input.
Ms. Douse said SHE wrote the guidelines and they were complied from other cities, I asked her to provide those notes, she could not. I did a FOIA to get the documents, and low-and-behold, they did not exist because Douse lied to me.
Jennifer Bowen at the CVB wrote the film rules (which she was woefully unqualified to do) and gave them to Douse. I already knew that when I asked the question.
So it is the same as turning in someone else’s work as your own, and then when caught, lying about it. I expect it form prep-school boys on Algebra homework, not from highly paid bureaucrats who has been paid a large salary to actually DO the work, not lie about it like a child caught.
So this Douse lady lied to me in writing, LITERALLY (pun intended)
I don’t know her personally, I bet she’s a great lady, but I must say I was a bit surprised when I saw this, then I thought about who was picking her.
I’ll just say that she was exceptionally typical bureaucrat in RC and will fit right in with the current crop of “leaders” we have down there.
If this is an indicator of where the position is headed, then the commission is moving away form competent management and towards more Hardie Davis style governance.
Lori Myles would definitely qualify to be the status quo of Hardie Davis..once again I’ll ask TAP…did she pay the 200k back she was ordered to pay?