News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
University of Tennessee System President Randy Boyd made a stop in Algood on Wednesday to showcase Algood and their collaborative projects on their tour across the state.
Algood Mayor Lisa Chapman-Fowler said that the city has utilized many of the services UT offers in work to enhance the community.
“Because that’s what they’re there for,” Chapman-Fowler said. “And those resources are there for us to take advantage of and that we should not think twice to ask for help. They’re never too busy to help us no matter how big or how small our municipality is.”
Chapman-Fowler said that UT has many resources outside of education for municipalities. She said that Algood had partnered with UT to update municipal codes and also to work on personnel evaluation forms and that UT was instrumental in the city’s work.
“Let’s just say you want to keep your pay scale in line with your population,” Chapman-Fowler said. “So we would call them and say, ‘We want to know. this is our population, this is our annual income. We want to know what is, for comparable cities, please tell us the starting pay for a utility clerk, or public works, or police officer.’ And they can shoot us out a printout and it will tell us cities that are our size, about our income, and what they’re doing so we can kind of take a look and be competitive with other cities, and (UT) is great to do that.”
Chapman-Fowler said that she was surprised that Boyd chose Algood to visit instead of the county seat in Cookeville. She said that Boyd told her they like to visit with smaller municipalities, especially ones that they’ve partnered with like Algood.
Chapman-Fowler said that Boyd also highlighted the systems other resources like 4-H services and the agricultural extension offices. She said that she left the meeting feeling satisfied, uplifted, and proud that UT chose to stop in Algood on their “Everywhere You Look UT” campaign.
