County Administrator Role Could Be Permanently Filled: Report

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — About six weeks after confirming Dr. Scott Hopes as acting Manatee County administrator, the Manatee County Board of County Commissioners are already considering him to take on the position permanently. He has more than 10 months left on his interim contract with the county.

Hopes, who also currently serves on the Manatee County School Board, is an experienced international chief executive officer, educator and leader with government, education and healthcare experience, according to a news release from the county.

After praising Hopes’ management of the Piney Point crisis, commissioners voted 4-3 Tuesday to negotiate a permanent contract with him, the Bradenton Herald reported.

“Dr. Hopes was not the person I championed, but since that time, he was thrown directly in the fire with Piney Point,” Commissioner James Satcher said. “If he were in the military, he would’ve qualified for a battlefield promotion at that point.”

Board chair and Commissioner Vanessa Baugh, who previously pushed for a statewide search to fill the position, supported appointing him to the position permanently. She’s received a lot of public positive feedback on Hope’s performance so far, she added.

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“I think that sometimes you know when the right person comes along,” Baugh said. “I have talked to many different citizens throughout this county, and I have never had one person tell me that they thought we could do better. Instead, it was, ‘How did you manage to get the right guy immediately?’ And I said, ‘You know what? It was an act of God.’”

Commissioner George Kruse suggested slowing down the process, though, and waiting until October 1 so they can assess Hopes’ performance, the Bradenton Times reported.

"That gets us through our break, through work sessions, gets us through an entire budget process to see how that budget process goes, and it still leaves six months left on a contract we just negotiated at a reasonable price—more than enough time to do a search if we deem we want to,” Kruse said. “And, by then, if we say, you know what, let's save the taxpayers money. It's expensive. It's time-consuming, it's most likely pointless because we've found the right guy ... now we can make the argument to everyone, we're not gonna do this search and we have backup support, not six weeks of support, half of it standing outside of a gypsum stack. We'd have real support after six months."

Hopes also currently sits on the School Board of Manatee County. He said that if he’s offered a permanent contract for the country administrator position, it would include a timeline for his resignation from the school board, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Gov. Ron DeSantis will appoint his replacement.

The board will make a final decision on hiring Hopes permanently May 25.