Lynchburg, VA: Senior City Staff Get Hefty Raises without Public Votes
Councilmembers asked questions and instead of getting answers, they were censured.
Lynchburg City Council members have asked a good question: When did the council vote to give the city manager and city attorney large raises? Staff pointed to a closed meeting where votes cannot legally take place. The mayor signed off on pay raises anyway. Then council moved to censure the members who kept asking uncomfortable questions.
Councilman Martin Misjuns asserts that Wynter Benda, the appointed city manager, receives $50,000 more in salary and benefits than those the council approved. That’s in addition to other fringe benefits that don’t appear to have received a public vote.
Another appointee, Lynchburg City Attorney Matthew Freedman, has also enjoyed a hefty salary hike with no publicly recorded vote found.
Notably, Section 2-42 of the Lynchburg City Code requires “an affirmative vote of a majority of the members elected to council” for any salary increase over $100.00.
Benda’s approved hiring contract, dated August 1, 2021, reflects a salary of $215,000 plus a $10,000 benefits supplement and a $6,000 annual car allowance. Since then, Benda reportedly has had multiple salary increases, without any publicly recorded votes found.
Misjuns’s email exchanges in early 2026 with Alicia Finney, the clerk of council, and Greg Patrick, the deputy city manager, include a 2023–2024 salary chart for the city manager’s office. It reveals a pay hike in 2024 for the city manager to $258,941.80, and an additional $7,500 in annual benefits supplement. One email references a council vote to approve these increases effective September 27, 2023, but Restoration News found no publicly recorded vote.
Misjuns specifically asks Finney, “Can you confirm whether this vote ever occurred, and if it did, provide a record of it?” Her response: “The vote they took was to certify the closed session.”
On August 14, 2024, then-Mayor Stephanie Reed signed a new employment contract with Benda for an increased salary and benefits package.
On September 13, 2023, Michelle Jackson, Lynchburg’s human resources director, sent an email to Reed asking her to confirm their previous conversation regarding Freedman’s salary hike. Jackson asked Reed if the “council voted last night to increase City Attorney Matthew Freedman’s annual salary to $180,000” and to “give him five additional annual leave days.” Reed’s response was: “Yes, I approve these changes based on the votes that passed last night.” Freedman’s 2021 salary was $140,000. Again, there were no publicly recorded votes found for this increase.
Misjuns has raised transparency concerns that the Lynchburg City Council may not be following open meeting laws. He has questioned several issues related to the city manager and city attorney’s contracts, as well as salaries of other top-level employees.
Restoration News spoke with Lynchburg Vice Mayor Curt Diemer. Elected in January 2025, he shares Misjuns’s concerns. “This is not about personalities or politics. It is about whether public money was paid without the authorization required by the contracts, state law, and the council’s own rules,” said Diemer. “No city employee, regardless of position, should be able to approve or receive additional compensation without clear legal authority and proper oversight from the elected council.”
Ignorance or Purposeful Disregard of the Law
State laws and individual charters approved by the legislature govern city councils in Virginia. Lynchburg’s charter defines the authority granted to local elected officials. In addition to those laws, council members take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the Virginia Constitution, and abide by other statutes, such as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
FOIA requires all meetings of public bodies to be open to the public with limited exceptions. A permissible reason to hold a closed meeting would be to discuss personnel matters. Yet, FOIA still requires all votes to be public even if the discussion was in closed session.
Lynchburg City Council’s own rules, Section 5-8C, state “No resolution, ordinance, rule, contract, regulation, or motion considered in a Closed Meeting shall become effective until the Council reconvenes in an open meeting and takes a vote of the membership on such resolution, ordinance, rule, contract, regulation, or motion which shall have its substance reasonably identified in the open meeting.”
Chapter III, Section 13 of Lynchburg’s charter specifies that the “city manager shall receive such compensation as shall be fixed by the council by ordinance or resolution.”
The council appears to ignore these rules.
Misjuns and Jeff Helgeson, a former councilmember, have pressed for answers relating to these salary changes. On August 13, 2024, the council held a special meeting and presented a last-minute, mayor-endorsed resolution to censure and punish Helgeson and Misjuns “for disorderly behavior and misconduct.” The meeting minutes reflect Reed’s claim that the discipline was because “two Councilmembers violated attorney-client privilege and defamed the character and reputation of the City Attorney based on political motivations.”
While Virginia law permits a local governing body to punish or fine a member for “disorderly behavior,” the law doesn’t give permission to prohibit an elected representative from participating in a meeting.
Following the August 13, 2024, censure meeting, the council held a work session that included a closed meeting “to review and/or evaluate the performance of the City’s Clerk of Council, City Attorney, and City Manager.” Meeting minutes reflect a vote to certify the closed meeting, but no publicly recorded votes relating to any other business, including salary increases.
Misjuns and Helgeson claimed council barred them from participating in the closed session meeting for these evaluations. Recorded minutes reflect that both were absent from the meeting certification vote.
Helgeson, whose term ended in 2024, had served more than 20 years on Lynchburg City Council. He and Misjuns both told Restoration News they were not aware of any public votes related to a salary increase for either Benda or the city attorney.
Restoration News reached out to Lynchburg’s Director of Public Information Susan Brown and asked for the meeting minutes related to the approval vote for Benda’s 2024 employment agreement signed by Reed. Brown punted the question, “I personally was not with the city at that time, so I am unable to give you a response based on my recollection. I advise you to reach out to the clerk of council.”
Restoration News also contacted Finney for the same information. She responded that Benda’s performance review happened in a closed meeting; moreover, the “council did not discuss the employees’ performance or the terms of any contractual agreements in open session, and no separate recorded vote was taken in open session to approve Mr. Benda’s August 14, 2024 employment agreement.”
A similar request was made to the former mayor, now city councilwoman, Reed, asking for all recorded votes related to salary increases for the city manager and city attorney. Reed did not respond by publication.
Reed’s hostility toward Misjuns was on full display Friday, September 4, 2026, during an interview on the Morningline radio show. When asked why she had called a last-minute special meeting earlier in the week to discuss flock cameras, despite this topic as already part of the following week’s agenda, Reed said they had fast-tracked the meeting because Misjuns was organizing people to speak at the meeting. “He had organized a mafia of people to support him next Tuesday who will be praising him and tearing down the mayor [Larry Taylor] and I,” said Reed. She went on to say that she wanted to “take some of the wind out of the sails” from those who were planning to speak. In other words, the meeting was fast-tracked so the public couldn’t give input and criticize her.
A pattern of government leaders trying to silence others, including the public, has become a problem in Lynchburg. Transparency questions remain, such as the one Misjuns raised: When did council vote, in public, to raise these salaries? According to the city clerk, a public vote may have never occurred. Until those records appear, Lynchburg taxpayers are left with emails, a mayor’s signature, and what appears to be a council circumventing public transparency laws by conducting business behind closed doors.
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