Caroline County officials were alarmed when County Administrator Charles Culley unexpectedly submitted his letter of resignation last fall.
Culley is a veteran administrator with 30 years of experience in county government.
At the time, Caroline was exploring several major development projects, including data centers, and its board of supervisors did not believe anyone on the staff was capable of taking over the reins. Salary data obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request showed that Culley was earning $201,929 per year when he resigned.
The board of supervisors were able to convince him to stay, and starting this past Jan. 1, Culley’s salary grew to $247,803 — a raise of nearly $46,000 per year in the middle of a budget cycle.
Caroline Board of Supervisors Chair Jeff Black said he does not regret the salary increase because there aren’t many people capable of leading a large staff, preparing recommended budgets funding all departments, and helping represent the county in negotiations with developers, among other duties.
“When you are a growing county like Caroline, we need someone with experience at the helm,” Black said. “Mr. Culley does an excellent job for us, and there is a limited supply of people that are capable of doing that job.”
Culley is currently on medical leave and was unavailable for comment.
State code notes that county administrators shall be responsible to the board for the proper administration of all affairs of the county for which the board has control. With Stafford County seeking a replacement for Randy Vosburg, who stepped down as county administrator in February, Culley is the highest-paid government official in the Fredericksburg area.
Spotsylvania County Administrator Ed Petrovich earns $239,990 per year. Fredericksburg City Manager Tim Baroody makes $240,829. King George’s newly hired administrator Matthew Smolnik, who began his tenure on Monday, is on a contract that pays him $200,000 per year.
Stafford, the most populated jurisdiction in the region, is advertising a salary ranging from $250,000 to $350,000 per year for its next administrator, depending on the candidate’s qualifications.
The salaries reflect a trend in the area — and the state — of rising costs for taxpayers to have a qualified administrator in place.
“I think there is no question that is happening,” Baroody said of the increase. “Stafford is not the outlier. They are in the region, but I can give you some data.”
Baroody went on to note that administrators up and down Interstate 95 from Fairfax County to Chesterfield County were earning anywhere from $336,000 to $382,000 per year in 2023.
When Culley first signed his contract in Caroline in 2012, his annual salary was $115,000. Petrovich’s contract in Spotsylvania has increased by approximately $53,000 a year since 2021, when he received a cost-of-living adjustment and merit increase that left him at $186,076.
Baroody’s salary went from $212,600 in July 2022 to $231,566 one month later. His most recent raise to his current salary went into effect July 8, 2023.
“You can call [search firms], and they will let you know this is a very hard position to fill,” Black said. “There are just not a lot of them out there that have the experience you’re going to want.”
King George Board of Supervisors representative David Sullins discovered that as well. Sullins said that out of approximately 30 applicants for the county administrator position, only a handful were qualified.
The board interviewed five candidates and settled on Smolnik, who was previously the economic development director in New Kent County.
Sullins said the rapidly rising salaries in the area and state make him wonder how long Smolnik will remain in King George.
“In the long-term I am a little bit concerned about trying to keep Matt if he is as strong a player as I believe he is,” Sullins said. “It is hard to compete with Stafford and Spotsylvania, with their industries and various revenue streams. I am hoping our small-town charm and lower cost of living will win him over.”
Baroody, who served as the deputy county administrator in Stafford before arriving in Fredericksburg, said the education background of city managers or county administrators can be diverse. He has an undergraduate degree in political science and earned a master’s in public administration from Virginia Tech.
Stafford is seeking someone with a bachelor’s in public or business administration, economics, planning, finance or a related field with a master’s degree preferred. Its advertisement also states the county’s ideal candidate will have five to nine years of public or private sector management experience as chief or deputy chief administrative officer of a comparably sized organization.
Baroody said his workload typically consists of 20 to 30 meetings per week with various entities in the city. He said no day is the same, and that is what he enjoys most about the job.
He also noted that city managers and county administrators must be nonpartisan because they often work with politically divided boards and councils. He said he is most proud of helping the Fredericksburg City Council build a consensus and support the annual budget unanimously eight years in a row.
A large part of his responsibility is ensuring a workforce is in place to cover all departments, so he meets monthly with the assistant city manager and representatives from the human resources department to confirm recruitment efforts are directed in the right places.
Every other week, he meets with Mayor Kerry Devine to discuss the upcoming City Council agenda, reading and signing off on every submission in the packet.
He also works closely with council members to solve issues in their wards and attends various ceremonies, such as the city’s commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day Thursday evening.
Sullins compared city managers and county administrators to the CEO or COO of a company.
“If you take that analogy all the way out, the residents are the shareholders and the board is the board of directors,” Sullins said. “The CEO answers to the shareholders, and we most definitely need to be answering to our constituents, or we’re in the wrong business.”
