Senoia Mayor Says City Budget Was “Unintelligible” Before Investigation

Senoia Mayor Scott Tigchelaar said concerns about missing financial documentation, unclear budget records, and unauthorized salary increases inside City Hall were among the reasons he decided to run for mayor last year.

In an interview with The Citizen, Mayor Tigchelaar said the issues began to surface during the city’s budget process last summer, when council members and residents struggled to interpret financial documents presented at a public workshop.

“I said, ‘Let me see the bloody budget,’” Mayor Tigchelaar said. “And then couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It was unintelligible.”

Mayor Tigchelaar said the budget documents lacked the kind of detail typically used to explain spending changes, such as prior-year comparisons and notes explaining increases.

“You’re going to see one or two years prior budgets, right, or actual spending versus your proposed budget,” he said. “And then you have a variance column that says, you know, hey, there’s a 5% increase in this with a note column explaining the 5% increase. There’s no detail like that in what was being presented.”

He said the lack of clarity raised concerns among council members who had been asking questions about the city’s finances.

“At the best case, there was just incompetence,” Mayor Tigchelaar said. “In the worst case, there was something untoward happening.”

Salary increases under scrutiny

The concerns later expanded to include questions about the city manager’s compensation.

Earlier this month, the City of Senoia filed a lawsuit in Coweta County Superior Court alleging former City Manager Harold Simmons increased his own pay by more than $176,000 through unauthorized raises between 2020 and 2024.

The complaint names Simmons, former Assistant City Manager Jeffrey Fisher, and former mayor William “Dub” Pearman III as defendants.

According to the lawsuit, Simmons’ salary rose from $99,718 in 2019 to $183,635 by late 2024 — an increase the city alleges was far beyond the cost-of-living adjustments typically approved for employees.

Tigchelaar said his own review of city records raised questions about how those increases were authorized.

“Only mayor and council, according to our charter, it’s very clear only mayor and council can approve salary increase for the city manager,” he said. “Not the mayor alone, and not the city manager himself.”

After requesting W-2 records through open records requests, Mayor Tigchelaar said he found evidence of significant increases but could not locate documentation showing formal council approval.

“Those are not authorized in any formal process where the mayor and council said yes,” he said.

Mayor Tigchelaar also alleged that documents inside personnel files appeared to have been changed during the investigation.

“There’s approvals that were put in the file that were signed by the city manager himself,” Mayor Tigchelaar said. “And then those were taken out of the file and replaced by one signed by the former mayor who didn’t have the authority to sign those.”

He said another approval appeared to have been added later and backdated.

“There was one signed by the previous mayor when he was mayor,” Mayor Tigchelaar said. “But it was put in last year, and he was mayor five or six years ago.”

Leadership transition at City Hall

The financial investigation has coincided with a broader leadership transition inside Senoia’s government.

Mayor Tigchelaar said the city is currently operating with an interim city manager while officials search for a permanent replacement.

Former Trilith executive Rob Parker has agreed to serve as interim city manager for what Tigchelaar described as a four- to six-month period.

“We needed somebody with some real fix-it skills and executive management experience,” Mayor Tigchelaar said. “Rob agreed to come in for four to six months to be an interim city manager for us and help oversee the search for a permanent city manager.”

Parker previously served as CEO and co-founder of Trilith, overseeing development of the Town at Trilith and the surrounding studio district.

Mayor Tigchelaar said Parker’s role will be to stabilize operations and help recruit a long-term administrator.

“We’ll have Rob for this window of time where he’s steadying the ship and getting everything on an even keel,” he said.

The permanent city manager, he said, would then fill other vacant positions and rebuild the city’s administrative team.

A temporary role, Tigchelaar says

Mayor Tigchelaar said he never planned to pursue public office but felt compelled to run after reviewing the city’s finances and management practices.

“I have never, ever wanted to be in politics,” he said.

Instead, he said his goal is to restore professional management and transparency in city government before stepping away from public office.

“I feel like I’m going to be a one-term mayor to try and get things straightened out, get some qualified professional people running this town with experience doing it, put the guardrails in place … and then I’m out.”

The lawsuit filed by the city remains pending in Coweta County Superior Court, where the defendants will have the opportunity to respond to the allegations.