Toccoa Makes Job Offer to Morse Official

There’s no ink on the dotted line yet, but the Toccoa City Commission has officially offered Franklin County manager Billy Morse his old job back as Toccoa City Manager.

It happened Monday night at their regular meeting at Toccoa City Hall when the board voted four to one to offer Morse a contract.   Only one Toccoa commissioner, Andy Pavliscsak, abstained.

Franklin County’s Board of Commissioners is scheduled to go into executive session tonight after their work session to discuss personnel, according to their agenda, which could mean discussing the process of finding a new county manager.

While no official announcement has been made from Morse himself, Toccoa is hoping Morse will accept their contract.

Toccoa Mayor David Austin said Monday the commission will wait to hear from Morse regarding their offer.

“We will offer him a contract. He will say ‘yay’ or ‘nay,’ and we should know something in the next couple of days on that,” Austin said. 

Morse was contacted by WLHR News Monday morning for a comment.   At that time, Morse said he had not yet seen the contract from Toccoa and had not made any official decision.  

Morse was named the sole finalist for the Toccoa City Manager’s position on September 3, immediately after city commissioners voted unanimously to fire Mike Jackson as city manager. 

At that time, Austin called Morse an ideal candidate who could hit the ground running for the city.  Austin says he is hopeful Morse will choose to return to Toccoa.

 “I know that he loves the City of Toccoa and that he would love to come back,” Austin said. “I feel confident that that will be the action he will take, but we won’t know until he actually signs the document.”

Morse had worked for the City of Toccoa for over 20 years and had served as Toccoa city manager for more than seven years before leaving the post in October 2009.

A month later, he was hired as the new Franklin County Manager.