Wednesday marks city administrator Ray Walden’s last day with the City of Salem. The weeks since July 26, when aldermen voted to not renew Walden’s contract, Salem has seen the beginning of a transition from his leadership to Sally Burbridge, economic development director, who has already been selected by the aldermen to step in as temporary city administrator.
The past week has been one of goodbyes for Walden. The city held a farewell reception for Walden Thursday afternoon, where many people came to wish him well.
Walden’s final aldermen meeting as administrator was Aug. 23, at which he outlined various projects that he has been involved with over the 11 years, eight of which he served as city administrator.
Walden first started working for the city in 2012 when he was hired as the part-time economic development director.
Prior to joining the city, he served as coordinator for the Salem TCRC (later to become Salem Community Center @ the Armory, where Walden even has a conference room named in his honor) and a business development specialist with MU Extension. During that time, he served as Salem Chamber of Commerce board president and Salem Area Community Betterment Association board president. Two notable things that Walden was involved with at that time was advocating for the 2% tourism sales tax as well as helping initiate the Chamber Expo.
Walden became the interim city administrator in January of 2014 after Clayton Lucas resigned—Walden was subsequently appointed to serve as the permanent city administrator the following May.
During Walden’s time as city administrator, he also served as the Rotary Club of Salem president as well as the chair of Meramec Region Planning Commission’s Transportation Advisory Committee.
At the Aug. 23 aldermen meeting Walden gave a largely chronological presentation for the board about some of his achievements during his tenure in Salem.
“This has never been the Ray show, Ray has always been part of the team,” said Walden of himself. “I think staff will tell you that; I think anybody I’ve worked with will tell you that,” he said.
“I work with people, I support people [and] I’ve had the opportunity to work with some great people and with some great boards...on some great projects,” he said.
“I’m not taking full credit for these things,” said Walden. “And I want to be very clear about that.”
First Walden discussed past and ongoing projects that he’s been involved with from 2014 to present.
“Early on there was a group called Growth in the Rural Ozarks (GRO) and that was an economic development project through the Community Foundation of the Ozarks,” he said.
“When I first came on as city administrator, we didn’t have funds in the budget for economic development,” said Walden. “This effort led to some good community discussions and a community effort that gave aldermen support for putting the funds in the budget—it took a couple of years to put funds in the budget for an economic development position and that is part of what led us to hire Sally [Burbridge], who I think has been a great hire. And we wouldn’t have had the impact that Sally’s had [if it were] not for that early discussion of that program,” said Walden.
Next Walden addressed the old middle school project.
“We were left with what became a liability and an eye-sore,” said Walden. He then explained how there were people in the community who believed that the building could be salvaged for some future use and others who believed it needed to be removed.
“I thought we did a very open, transparent process. We invested some city resources in some engineering reports that we made available to the public,” said Walden.
“We solicited involvement proposals for people who thought it could be developed and salvaged into something, and we also took proposals to demo the building and to deal responsibly with the environmental issues that were there—and we had community meetings and it was all open to the public,” he said.
Walden said that he believed the community responded well to that process so that when it came time for the board at that time to make a decision “there was transparency there where they could make a decision without fear of backlash from the community.”
The city received no proposals to develop the property and the building was ultimately demolished.
“Now the community has an area that can be developed into something to be determined…” said Walden.
Walden discussed the city street and utility infrastructure around Dollar Tree, Phelps Health, and Riverways Federal Credit Union, the passage of a 3/8% sales tax for parks and recreation that helped make possible pool and pool house renovations, as well as the all-inclusive playground project.
“I remember the day we had a ribbon-cutting for that,” said Walden. Walden said that it was a great day for Salem to see kids with and without disabilities playing alongside one another.
Walden also briefly touched upon a number of other things he was involved with—including: phase one of the sewer plant upgrades, planning for phases two and three, updating community branding and updating the city website, converting the old city hall auditorium to a theater, improving both customer service and security improvement at the administration building, the TAP sidewalk projects (one completed, one in process), soccer complex development (in process), zoning map update (in process), a variety of different utility enhancements, AMI meter replacement (which he discussed in greater detail later in the meeting), the Hwy. J/Hwy. 72 and the Hwy. 19 extension projects, Exceleron Prepay (in process), Certified Site Status Application (in process), HVAC building maintenance, clearing trees at the airport, the 6-unit T-hangar construction project (in process).
“Of course there will be new things as you get your next administrator and update your plans,” said Walden to the board.
Walden then discussed some of the potential future projects that he has been involved with laying some of the groundwork for—such as expanding utility capacity, installation of an additional water tower, installation of an additional electric feeder, as well as updating the utility map.
Walden spent a few minutes discussing some of the challenges faced in recent years. First among them was the AMI meter project.
“That led into our utility billing—that was really more the issue than really the meters themselves,” said Walden.
“We were so down in the trenches with trying to get through projects that we didn’t take time that we could have or should have [to communicate],” said Walden.
“We implemented that without an independent project manager,” he said.
“Our board was supportive of the project, it was a progressive thing, it was something we needed to do…to get our utilities where we needed [them] to be,” he said.
“Staff coordinated with vendors, but implementation issues caused delays that weren’t easily resolved,” he said.
“Staff worked with the board, the utility committee and vendors to resolve those issues. Between those groups we developed some creative solutions to try and work through the issues. The aldermen authorized an engineering firm to conduct an independent assessment of the project. The principal engineer with the project indicated that issues with the project were no fault of city personnel,” he said.
“It’s just, the way that the projects were structured wasn’t positioned the best, but we worked through it and we have a functioning system now,” said Walden.
Walden also addressed the large number of staff and board transitions since he has been with the city.
“Mayor Parker is my fifth mayor in—really a relatively short period of time,” said Walden. Gary Brown was mayor when Walden started, then J.J. Tune, followed by Brad Nash, then Kim Steelman and now Parker. That’s to say nothing of the large number of aldermen who have served during the same timeframe or staff leadership.
“But you’ve got some good ones here,” said Walden of the various department heads.
Walden discussed a “pathfinder assessment” that the city hired People Centric to conduct in January and February of last year. The assessment included a culture survey, employee interviews, and executive interviews.
According to Walden, under the “People” section, city employees overall noted a sense of pride in working for The City of Salem. Employees view the City of Salem as an “employer of choice” for the area; the pay and benefits are highly valued and employees also indicated long-term loyalty.
Under the “Management” section, the survey noted as a strength that Walden was an optimistic city administrator. Many city employees indicated they thought the city administrator was doing a good job. Some respondents noted there had been some hard things shared in the media and many employees empathize with that as well, recognizing the work that happens behind the scenes, Walden explained.
Walden also briefly discussed recent efforts by the city to improve communications and public relations. Implementing things such as utility bill inserts, direct mail, text alerts, social media posts and public service announcements.
“We’re also using a consultant,” said Walden. The city is utilizing consultants provided by the Missouri Public Utility Alliance, who the city partners with to purchase wholesale power.
“They’ve been advising us with some of the utility-related messaging,” he said.
According to Walden, city staff continue to explore additional channels of communication to engage with the community. This is an improvement Walden characterized as a “critical need” for the city.”
Walden also presented a slide that he asked finance director Houston to prepare. The slide charts fund balances at the end of each year since fiscal year 2013-14. Walden provided this slide to The Salem News and it can be found attached to this story on thesalemnewsonline.com.
Walden pointed out that the city has been able to move from a total fund balance of $1.9 million at year end FY 2013-14 to a total fund balance of $5.4 million at year end FY 2021-22.
“Yes, that’s not a ton of money—that’s relatively flat. But think about those prior lists of investments we’ve been able to make, the projects we’ve been able to do on a shoestring budget and to maintain at least what fund balances we have,” he said.
“I know with our current economic environment, this is going to be tougher and tougher and tougher to do,” said Walden.
“So, [for Burbridge] and your future leadership, that will be a future challenge—maintaining the fund balances, looking for additional revenue sources as your costs continue to increase. All cities are facing those challenges.
“Looking back, I’m proud of the effort that we’ve done—to do what we’ve done and keep the fund balances the way we did,” he said.
Walden wrapped up his final report with a few final remarks.
Walden said the in the past weeks he has often been asked, what’s next.
“I can’t answer that for the city, [the board] will answer that as you go forward,” he said.
“But I can tell you this: you’ve got some good team members and I’m excited for the city—you’ve got some people that are very competent. Whoever your next administrator is, they have some people that are committed and will help them however they can,” he said.
“I look forward to see what comes next for the city.”
Parker told The Salem News that after Walden’s last day he plans to call a special meeting of the aldermen on Thursday for Burbridge to take her oath of office.
