The Tift County Development Authority and the Development Authority of Tift County decided Friday in a special called executive session meeting to appoint members to a study committee to determine the future structure of personnel. Also, a member of the staff of the COC was appointed as interim director of the Development Authority.

Currently, the Tifton-Tift County Chamber of Commerce and the Development Authority share one executive director. Until he resigned April 15, Brad Day served in that position. Lynn Lovett, chairman of the COC, said Thursday afternoon that the present is a good time to think about the structure and what would work best for the community.

“A lot of things have worked well and others need some fine tuning,” Lovett said.

Lovett said that some communities in the state use one employee to handle both COC responsibilities and development authority responsibility and some have two separate people that fill the jobs. She said a vote was taken in public after the executive session and those present agreed to appoint two members of the COC and two from the Development Authority to study the issue and make the best recommendation.

Tammy Sandiford, a COC staff person who Lovett said “has a huge volunteer base with the Chamber” was appointed as interim director of the Development Authority. She previously assisted Day with economic development and is an employee of both the Chamber and the Development Authority. Linda Floyde will continue to oversee the chamber until another employee  is hired.

Jack Perry has assumed some of the duties of Development Authority director, Lovett said. She commented that Perry “has been good to assume the duties he has” and that he will continue his role, which includes keeping vacant buildings in industrial parks maintained and showing the buildings to potential tenants.

Lovett said evaluating the current staff structure and deciding soon what needs to be done will be worth the effort as it will allow the agencies to write a job description and detail responsibilities before the position(s) are advertised and people are interviewed.

“Everybody is very interested in what is best for Tifton and Tift County,” Lovett said. “We want to do this as soon as possible.”

To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.