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Mayor Harris: 'I've enjoyed every minute of it'

By ROGER EMILE STOUFF
With 31 years of employment with the City of Franklin, including 13½ as mayor, Raymond Harris says, “I enjoyed every minute of it.”
Now two weeks away from ending his career with the city, Harris sets his sights on the future, with fond—and proud—glimpses to the past three decades.
He was hired by former mayor Sam Jones for a summer to help “catch up the books, and he gave me a chance, and I’ll always be grateful for that. I had to work my butt off. I think of it as a baptism by fire. I probably learned more in those first few years than most people in five or six years.”
Harris served under Jones for 17 years. “I enjoyed learning the business side of city government,” he said. “I enjoyed having a hand in that. And I did some things as (chief financial officer) to move the department forward.”
He updated the office from a manual accounting system to an automated system; he generated a fixed assets list, with help from his wife, Connie.
“You’re talking about $40 million worth of assets,” Harris said. “Before I came in, the city had 13 violations of material weaknesses in their audit report, and after my first 18 months we got that down to two, and one has been cleared by CFO Ed Hay.”
The city did not have a capital outlay plan at that time—a list of construction priorities—and he created one. “We needed a roadmap for the future,” he said. “I didn’t want us to just have a knee-jerk reaction to a problem. I recommended to the charter commission that they put it into the charter, and they did.”
A fiscally conservative CFO, and subsequently mayor, Harris says, “When you’re spending taxpayer dollars you better have good reasons for every dime you spend,” he noted. “Because the city never had much money, we couldn’t afford to have any other position than to be conservative.”
In fact, Harris’s naturally fiscally conservative view led to an $800,000 street overhaul that did not have to be achieved with borrowed bond money.
“Any extra money we had, we put into projects. That’s who I am by nature. I’m a conservative, I don’t like to spend, I’m going to save. That’s served me well especially as mayor.”
He says he is conservative on revenue projections, but liberal on expenditures. “Then if it doesn’t balance, I know where to cut back,” the mayor said. “What we can do to pull that into our favor. When things got real bad and I had to make cuts…you don’t want to make cuts and them not be enough. The cuts I put into place got us through the hard times.”
Harris likened fiscal policy to a hurricane: Start early. “When I see things going off course, I’m going to jump in and do X, Y and Z, and the sooner you make the cuts, you minimize the pain.”
When asked to name his proudest accomplishment, Harris thought for a moment and said, “Wow.”
Once he thought it over, he said, “Coming in as mayor, water plant work. I got a letter on the 18th of October and I was sworn in on the 19th of October. It basically condemned everything in the plant except the bricks.”
Years of renovations followed as Harris and the council took the bull by the horns. “Just about everything over there is brand new now,” he said. “We’ve probably added another 30-40 years to it.”
He said acquisition of the 35,000 square foot former E.A. Crowell Elementary School for a new location of city hall cost a bit more than a dollar per square foot. He is also proud of the number of street rehabilitations accomplished over his terms.
As he prepares to leave office, he is gratified that the funds have been secured for a sewer plant overhaul. “I came in and fixed the water plant, I’m going out fixing the sewer plant. And even though the construction will begin after I’m gone, my administration got the money.”
With a smile, he adds, “I’m proud of the fact that my administration has been boring. We’ve not had scandals, I’ve governed with integrity. We’ve had sound fiscal management, strong law enforcement, and we’ve kept the city looking good.”
Recreation has been an ever-growing partnership between Harris and Jones. “A lot of the improvements we made, especially at Caffery Park, Sam got us the money. Some improvements he started such as the summer feeding program, we continued it. We’ve been able, for a few dollars, to add a program here-and there. Biddy Basketball has been going on since I was a kid…we added a few tweaks and twists.
He credits the board of Little League, now Dixie Youth, for taking much of the load from his shoulders. “Paul Frost has done an outstanding job over there. He and Sam and I partnered together. Paul had a list of what he needed, and Sam got the money. We put up our share, and we got a lot of things done.”
Pecot Park is another example. “The community came to us,” Harris said. “Said we want these improvements, and we were able to do that. We’ve tried different things at Broussard-Harris. We had Little League baseball there, it lasted for a little while. What killed Spark Up the Park (a Christmas lighting and decoration initiative) was vandalism, and what killed Little League was we didn’t have enough support from the men in the community. The moms and the grandmoms supported it, but the fathers didn’t. But I’m real proud of the fact that we’ve always had things for our young people to do during the summer months.”
Lack of finance has been the mayor’s major challenge. “If I had $90 million, I could spend every dime of it wisely,” he said. “We’re getting by, but we need a new public safety complex for police, fire and city court. We need a whole new fleet for the police department, new trucks and equipment for the fire department, public works needs a new fleet…those things.
“The biggest disappointment is that we had to cut the employees (salaries) 5 percent, and the economy hasn’t picked up enough to restore it. I applaud my employees for continuing to work, and my department heads.”
Looking back and ahead, Harris said he is seeking his next position, his next season in life, and feels good about prospects he’s attained. “I hope to continue in municipal government and there are some prospects for that,” he said. “I hope to continue to be involved in management and finance. I like both of them. I also hope to continue to minister, which has always been my passion. I don’t expect a whole lot of changes, though I may be leaving Franklin for opportunity. That might be the biggest change.
“But I’m really looking forward to the next season in my life. It’s going to be good, I feel good about myself and what I have to offer, and the responses I’ve gotten from those who are looking at possibly employing me.”
He expressed his gratitude to the people of Franklin. “I love Franklin, I love the people of Franklin. It’s been my joy, my honor and my privilege to serve the people of Franklin. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”

ST. MARY NOW

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