Present for the Sept. 8 Village Council meeting were, from left, Stephanie Pearce, Senay Semere, Angie Hsu and Gavin DeVore Leonard. Absent were Council member Carmen Brown and outgoing Village Manager Johnnie Burns. (Video still)
Village Council approves $55k for interim Village manager services
- Published: September 14, 2026
At the most recent Village Council meeting, Tuesday, Sept. 8, Village Council approved several pieces of legislation in connection with outgoing Village Manager Johnnie Burns’ resignation, which he announced at a special meeting last month.
For now, though, Burns remains manager.
Until negotiations between him and Council are finalized — which is expected to occur in the coming days — Burns will continue in his role. Once those discussions end and the conditions of a separation agreement are agreed upon, Council will convene publicly to vote on a formal resolution that, if approved, would end Burns’ two-year stint as Village manager.
That vote will either occur at a special meeting, which will be announced 24 hours ahead of time on the Village and News websites, or at the next regularly planned Council meeting on Monday, Sept. 21.
With Burns at the municipal helm for now, Council began laying the groundwork on Tuesday to continue municipal operations without him — namely, beginning the work of finding Burns’ eventual successor.
Among the legislation Council approved was a supplemental appropriations ordinance to add $55,000 to the Village budget to cover the costs associated with contracting interim Village manager services.
Shortly after, by a vote of 4–0 — Council member Carmen Brown was absent from Tuesday’s meeting, as was Burns — Council approved a resolution for the Village to enter into an agreement with Management Advisory Group, LLC, to hire Jeff Sheridan as the Village’s interim manager.
The agreement states that, for approximately 16 weeks, Sheridan will work for an average of 24 hours per week at a rate of $135 per hour to, as Council President Gavin DeVore Leonard said, “help with the highest priority items in the months ahead.”
DeVore Leonard said that includes: “Expediting contracts; partnering with a finance director to ensure a smooth annual audit; supporting decision-making during emergencies; and working with staff, Council partners, stakeholders and residents, as regular business and projects — including upkeep of our infrastructure and utilities — continue.”
Sheridan is expected to begin as interim manager around Sept. 15, DeVore Leonard said at Tuesday’s meeting.
The contract with Management Advisory Group that Council approved states that Sheridan will be provided an office in the Bryan Center offices, access to all enterprise resource and planning software — including personnel files, payroll, budgetary and accounting software — as well as Village documents pertaining to budgets, capital improvement plans, job descriptions and more.
As Sheridan acts in an interim capacity, DeVore Leonard said the Village will engage in a search for a permanent manager — a search that he estimates will take three to six months.
What that search process looks like, the Council president didn’t say; in the past, the Village has invoked the help of Yellow Springs residents to populate search committees, issued community-wide surveys, and held forums and town halls. As the News previously reported, the 2019 search that led to the appointment of Burns’s predecessor, Josue Salmeron, cost the Village an estimated $15,000, according to Council Clerk Judy Kintner.
Burns rose internally from Village public works director to interim manager upon Salmeron’s departure in 2023, then later to permanent manager in February 2024; the Village did not engage in any wide-scale search process for Burns’s appointments. Once hired as manager, he served in a dual capacity — continuing as public works director.
Council members are, upon the completion of negotiations with Burns, expected to retain Burns in an advisory capacity — he will provide public works consulting services to the Village for a year.
Echoing some of what had been said at the contentious Aug. 21 meeting when Burns announced his resignation, made “by his own free will,” a few Yellow Springs residents went to the podium on Tuesday to excoriate Council for what they believed was a short-sighted decision to get rid of Burns.
“Have you thought this through,” Dino Pallotta asked Council members, and suggested that finding, hiring and paying Burns’ replacement as well as a new public works director would cost nearly $400,000. “This is not effective leadership. You are costing the taxpayers for a personality conflict. Two of you need to go, period.”
Villagers Matthew Kirk and Ralita Hilderbrand-Chambers also suggested pursuing recall efforts to remove DeVore Leonard and Council Vice President Angie Hsu from the governing body.
DeVore Leonard acknowledged the apparent frustration toward him and his Council members near the end of the meeting; he addressed some of the critical perceptions of Council as not being transparent and the group’s alleged involvement in Burns’ resignation.
“We should have done a better job at communicating about the changes over the past month about dynamics that have built up over the months and years,” the Council president said. “We will be looking for how we can improve going forward.”
He continued: “For too long, in an effort to protect [Village] staff and Council members from receiving negative feedback, too much has gone unsaid. While we have worked this year to clearly articulate our goals and priorities, much of the behind the scenes process of trying to figure out how to work together is unseen and unheard. Personnel matters are complex and very hard to work through in a public setting.”
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