Douglas County Hires Albany City Manager As New Administrator

DOUGLASVILLE, GA — The city manager who helped navigate her town through Georgia’s first major COVID-19 outbreak will be joining Douglas County in April as its new top administrator.

Sharon D. Subadan was hired Tuesday as county administrator by the Douglas County Board of Commissioners. On Thursday, she submitted her official letter of resignation in Albany, where she had been city manager since 2015. Her final day there will be April 18.

Albany is the seat of Dougherty County, which last spring had one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the country.

“We’ve been dealing with COVID for over a year,” Albany Mayor Bo Dorough said to The Albany Herald, pointing to remote work and at times a large number of absent employees. “We’ve continued to provide services.”

“Ms. Subadan brings a proven track record of success in building effective teams, creating opportunities for growth, and implementing fiscally responsible budgets,” commissioners said in a statement released Tuesday.

Subadan will be charged with running Douglas County’s daily operations and managing its budget. In Albany, she managed 1,174 employees and a budget of more than $290 million.

Subadan brings with her more than 30 years of government expertise, according to the commissioners’ statement. Her public-service experience before Douglas County includes positions in Florida and Maryland as well as the top job in Albany.

The move also will give Subadan a pay raise. According to her contract, obtained through an open-records request by The Douglas County Sentinel, Subadan will earn an annual base salary of $215,000 as admininstrator. The Douglasville newspaper reported that Subadan earned $200,000 a year in Albany.

Subadan previously had been a finalist to manage the city of Augusta, according to the Sentinel. That job went to Odie Donald, former South Fulton manager.

Subadan holds a master’s degree from The George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree from Trinity International University. She is an International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Credentialed Manager, a Certified Public Manager and a Lean Six-Sigma Black belt who is passionate about servant leadership in the public space.

Subadan and her husband Carl have three sons, two of whom live in the Atlanta metro area with their wives. She also has a 6-year-old grandson.

“We’re certainly appreciative of all Sharon Subadan did during her tenure here in Albany,” Dorough said to The Albany Herald. “She is to be commended for that, including being the first city manager in 30-something years to forcefully and successfully address the separation of the stormwater and sanitary sewer. Everybody else elected to take a pass on it, and Sharon Subadan confronted it.”

Dorough also praised Subadan for her leadership through two storms in 2017 and Hurricane Michael in 2018.

“It was just the right time” to move, Subadan said to the Albany newspaper after her new job was announced. “I’ve had a great run here in Albany, but for everything, there is a season. This was one of those opportunities that I felt like I had to take.”

Read the stories in The Douglas County Sentinel and The Albany Herald.