Fayette City Administrator Tyler Griffith resigned from his post on Thursday afternoon, June 17. The resignation occurred just three days after he had announced that he would take a three-week leave of absence. 

Griffith was hired by the city in July 2020, on a two-year contract.

“I am saddened to announce today the resignation of City Administrator Tyler Griffith,” said Fayette Mayor Kevin Oeth in a statement released by the city. “Mr. Griffith has indicated that he is resigning in order to pursue other opportunities. Mr. Griffith has made substantial contributions to our City. While he will be missed, we wish him every success in his future endeavors.”

This was Griffith’s first time serving in a municipality, although he graduated from Missouri Valley College in 2011 with a degree in Public Administration. Before he was hired by the City of Fayette last year, he spent nine years managing retail stores in the private sector.

Once again Fayette is without a city administrator while the deadline looms to pass the next fiscal year’s budget. The city council is duty bound by law to pass a new budget before July 1. As City Administrator, it was Griffith’s job to lead the budget process. In March 2020, the city council fired longtime city administrator and city clerk Robin Triplett after her failure to timely file financial reports with the state cost the city more than $150,000 in fines. Jeff Hancock was hired shortly thereafter as the interim city administrator. He worked to clean up what turned out to be quite a mess at city hall and prepared the 2020-21 city budget which was adopted June 30, 2020.

Griffith made the announcement on June 14 that he would take a leave of absence via a letter addressed to Fayette Community Members, which was posted to his personal Facebook page. He said the time off would be due to health reasons.

In the letter, Griffith wrote that while he has enjoyed his 10 months in the community, coming into the job the odds were stacked against him. He wrote that the city has been deteriorating for years because of the lack of capital infrastructure investments, and cited that not long before he was hired the city had been slapped with a $150,000 tax fine because of “lack of oversight on the local level.”

“That was not why this role fitted my experiences this was seen as a huge opportunity to do the right thing and help others,” he wrote.