Transparency to Opacity: Professional Hiring to Political Firing

Four months ago, Warren County completed a professionally contracted executive hiring process. The Board of Supervisors invested $34,500 in an organized search process with a national executive search firm, conducted a rigorous multi-month recruitment process, and hired a county administrator with proven experience managing a $100 million budget for 53,000 residents, slightly larger than Warren County’s 42,000.

This Wednesday, the Warren County Board of Supervisors will almost certainly fire our administrator without cause, at a cost of $100,000 in salary plus six months of insurance benefits for his family. Total severance: approximately $113,000. Add the $34,500 already spent on the professional search firm, and Warren County will have wasted approximately $147,500 to hire and immediately fire a qualified administrator for no stated performance reason.

The Timeline Reveals the Plan

Legal services invoices from November and December, and the county attorney’s email indicate that Wednesday’s pending action (i.e., “Action regarding the employment of the County Administrator”) is not a product of Board deliberation, but was set in motion before the new Board majority was even seated, and preceding the announcement of the special meeting called for Wednesday.

January 22, 2026: Special meeting announced for January 28 to discuss the administrator’s employment.

January 23, 2026: County Attorney forwards email to Board revealing he is already engaged in active separation agreement discussion (Jan 22) with the administrator, including analysis of severance terms and formulation of counteroffers being conveyed to the Board.

The County Attorney’s own email correspondence reveals he was already discussing separation agreement terms before the Board even received notice of a special meeting to discuss the administrator’s employment. When negotiations precede the meeting called to deliberate the matter, it’s reasonable to conclude the decision was made before the public proceedings. Wednesday’s meeting appears to be merely the formality required to ratify what’s already been decided in private.

The County Attorney’s role raises additional concerns. Virginia Code § 15.2-1542 designates the county attorney as advisor to “the governing body”-the Board as a collective body, not individual members acting independently. Yet the invoice and email suggest the attorney was consulting with individual supervisors and discussing the administrator’s separation before the full Board received any briefing or took any official action, as would be expected to take place during the special meeting that has been called.

The Opaque Decision: Where We’re Going

Wednesday’s special meeting will likely end with the administrator being fired after barely four months on the job. The stated reason? There isn’t one, at least not publicly.

The county administrator’s employment contract specifies five grounds for termination “for cause,” each requiring documented failures, prior written notice, and opportunity to correct deficiencies:

• Failure to perform duties after a written demand
• Willful serious misconduct after demand to cease
• Felony conviction
• Willful breach of contract after notice
• Moral turpitude, dishonesty, theft, or disloyalty

None of these conditions has been met. No written performance deficiencies. No demands for improvement. No disciplinary process. Not even a formal performance evaluation.

Instead, this will be termination “without cause”-the contract provision that exists when an employer simply wants someone gone for reasons unrelated to job performance.

The cost? Up to six months of salary and benefits continuing until he finds other full-time employment. For budgeting purposes, the full amount must be assumed, ~$113,000, plus the lost value of the $34,500 recruiting firm fee.

Warren County will have invested nearly $150,000 to hire and immediately fire a qualified administrator for no stated performance reason.

The Immediate Crisis: Budget Season Without Leadership

The timing of this forced resignation creates an immediate governance crisis that will affect every Warren County taxpayer: the FY 2027 budget process.

The current administrator has spent the past three months working with department heads on budget planning. He brought no personal history with Warren County staff, no familial relationships with department heads, no political debts to pay. As an outsider with a proven track record managing a $100 million budget, he could credibly serve as an objective professional evaluating departmental requests against county needs and revenues.

If our administrator is fired on Wednesday, who reviews those departmental requests? Who provides independent professional analysis to the Board?

The answer will be either an internal promotion or a rushed outside hire. Either option creates a credibility crisis.

An internal candidate promoted under these circumstances enters the budget process fatally compromised. And they know-everyone will know-that they got the job because the Chair wanted the previous administrator gone, and they are viewed as a compliant replacement.

More fundamentally, how can they recommend anything the Chair doesn’t want when everyone knows they serve at her pleasure and got the job through her political maneuver? They can’t. Or rather, they can, but no one will believe the recommendations come from independent professional judgment rather than political calculation or personal relationships.

This is the practical consequence of throwing away a professional search process. Warren County won’t just lose an experienced administrator. It will enter its most critical annual decision-the budget-with leadership that lacks the credibility to provide objective administrative analysis. Department heads will know it. Board members will suspect it. Citizens will question every recommendation.

The budget that emerges from this compromised process will reflect political accommodation and personal relationships rather than professional management. And whoever takes the job, whether an internal candidate or an outside hire desperate enough to accept a poisoned chalice, will be set up for failure from day one. Not because they lack ability, but because the process that puts them in place destroys the credibility they need to do the job effectively.

The Questions That Demand Answers

If Warren County’s Board of Supervisors fires our administrator on Wednesday, citizens deserve answers to fundamental questions:

On what basis? If there are legitimate performance concerns warranting removal after just four months, what are they? Why was no evaluation conducted? Why was the administrator given no opportunity to address concerns? Why do the employment contract’s “cause” provisions-requiring documentation and due process-not apply?

By what process? Who authorized the county attorney to begin separation discussions before the Board even met, much less deliberated and took any public action? Does this represent proper governance by the full Board, or coordination through individual consultations?

At what cost? Why is throwing $150,000 down the drain now acceptable? What county priorities will be unfunded to pay for this political decision?

For what purpose? What will the county gain from discarding a professionally recruited administrator with proven experience? How does Warren County benefit from demonstrating to future qualified candidates that political cronyism matters more than professional credentials?

With what replacement? Who does this Board have waiting to take over? An internal candidate with personal relationships throughout county government? A political ally of the new majority? Someone willing to be what the previous professionally-recruited administrator would not-a rubber stamp rather than an independent professional manager?

And what position does this put that replacement county administrator in? Any internal candidate or local hire will enter the job under a cloud of suspicion-not because of their own qualifications or character, but because of how they got there. They’ll face immediate questions about whether they’re truly qualified and independent or simply a rubber stamp for the Chair and the new majority. Every decision they make will be scrutinized through the lens of political loyalty rather than professional judgment. At every step, critics will ask whether it’s genuine professional advice or political accommodation. Every time they recommend something the Chair wants, the public will wonder if they were hired precisely because they’ll deliver those recommendations.

This isn’t fair to whoever takes the job. But it’s the inevitable consequence of replacing a professionally recruited administrator with someone selected through an opaque, politically-driven process. The stain of illegitimacy doesn’t wash off easily, and it will haunt both the replacement and the Board that hires them.

Using what process? Will this Board attempt to use the recruiting firm’s warranty? Do they have a pre-chosen candidate that will go through the same rigorous evaluation and vetting process that all the finalists went through last year, resulting in Mr. Gotshall’s selection? One may speculate that the recruiting firm’s warranty is now worthless. What qualified candidates would apply to Warren County after watching this blatant political firing? The least they could do is ask the recruiter to perform an evaluation of experience and vetting that the others had to go through.

Will the next search be conducted with the same transparency and professional standards, or will it be an inside deal that has already been done behind the scenes?

The Transparent Process: How We Got Here

The contrast between September’s professionally managed, merit-based hiring and what appears to be Wednesday’s predetermined political firing reveals everything citizens need to know about the difference between good governance and cronyism. And what should we expect for the replacement hiring? Will this Board return to the professional process they just discarded, or will the next administrator be selected through the same opaque methods being used to remove this one? And what professional recruiting firm would want to work with Warren County after watching it discard a qualified candidate for purely political reasons? The warranty is worthless, not because the firm failed, but because the Board refused to honor a professional hiring process once political control changed hands.

Last year’s Board of Supervisors made a deliberate choice to conduct the county administrator search professionally and publicly. Rather than hire based on personal connections or political loyalties, they:

• Issued a Request for Proposals to select a national executive recruiting firm
• Chose a firm with specialized expertise in local government recruitment
• Conducted extensive vetting of candidates through a standardized process
• Interviewed multiple candidates from an original field of 40 applicants.

The administrator they hired brought impressive credentials as an administrative executive for four public jurisdictions, the last one being nearly seven years leading a township with a $100 million budget serving 53,000 people. His track record includes both elected office and professional public management experience. He has a master’s degree in public administration. The recruiting firm provided a one-year warranty on his job placement, reflecting confidence in the match.

The Board voted 4-1 to approve his employment contract. The single “no” vote came from Supervisor Cullers, who is now Board Chair, and who is initiating the firing action on Wednesday.

Transparency to Opacity

Five months ago, Warren County demonstrated how government hiring should work: open process, professional standards, rigorous vetting, and a set of qualified candidates to interview.

Wednesday’s meeting will demonstrate the opposite: closed-door discussions under questionable FOIA exemptions, separation initiated through the county attorney at the behest of Chair Cullers rather than waiting for the outcome of proper Board proceedings, undisclosed reasons, political calculations hidden from public view, and an outcome that serves factional political interests rather than countywide needs.

The $35,000 spent on the professional search represented an investment in merit-based recruitment for a professional administrator. The nearly $150,000 about to be wasted on a political firing represents something else entirely: a decision initiated with a “no” vote by Supervisor Cullers in September, negotiated in private, and brought to a special meeting only for the formality of a vote.

Warren County citizens should ask themselves: which model of government do we want? The professional recruiting process that brought us a qualified administrator, or the opaque process about to fire him and replace him?

The answer to that question matters far more than $150,000. It defines the kind of county government we have: professional, qualified, proven management, or political cronyism.