The Tybee City Council voted 4 to 3 against a motion to fire City Manager Diane Schleicher on Thursday night.
Mayor Jason Buelterman voted against the motion, along with Council members Paul Wolff, Bill Garbett and Wanda Doyle.
Council members Tom Groover, Barry Brown and Jan Fox cast the supporting votes.
It was the second failed vote to fire Schleicher since the current council took their seats last year, with a previous motion rejected by four votes. Groover and Brown had voted in support due to what they saw as Schleicher’s mismanagement of funds.
Fox was not on the council at that time.
The vote was held up for about 15 minutes Thursday night as Doyle debated how to vote, prior to her decision to oppose the motion, according to Garbett and City Clerk Jan LeViner.
The vote was not witnessed by a reporter, however, since he was not notified the closeddoor session had ended at about 8:30 p.m.
Buelterman said they were not aware that anyone else was still there and did not mean to shut anyone out.
The vote came after a series of accounting errors stemming back to 2008 were discovered during audit preparations last year. The errors led to the city having to get its audit submission deadline extended by the state.
The council learned Thursday that they will have to transfer about $820,000 from the general fund to correct accounting errors stemming back to 2008.
The budget adjustment includes moving about $456,000 back into the special purpose local option sales tax account.
Finance Director Angela Hudson, who joined the city in the fall, said the funds should have never been transferred to the general fund.
Steven Garber, a private accountant hired to help complete last year’s audit report, said the improper transfers should have been caught by past finance directors and auditors before they were ever approved.
When pressed on the matter by Groover, Schleicher said that the past auditors said there was no problem when the transfers were questioned in the past — a claim supported by Doyle and Fox.
Garber suggested the city may want to spend more time reviewing auditors’ experience for future audits.
About $363,000 will also have to be put in the city’s solid waste fund to cover a deficit that has built up over the years.
The transfer should leave about $3.7 million in the city’s general fund.
Of that, funding will have to be designated for greenspace and beach renourishment.
That will leave about $1.5 million, or two month’s worth, of “rainy day” funds to cover operations during an emergency, Hudson said.
The greenspace and beach renourishment funds can be used, however, if that emergency funding is not sufficient, Hudson said.
Hudson said she would be presenting the budget adjustments for their approval at their next council meeting. In addition, she said she will propose a series of internal controls for adoption to help prevent future accounting problems.