FAIRHOPE, Alabama—Two years after Eddie Boyett celebrated his retirement in November 2009 as head of the city’s recreation department since 1993, he was hired again last month by Mayor Tim Kant for a new position at a new department created by the City Council shortly before Boyett’s rehiring.

“I don’t even know my title,” Boyett said Monday. “I’ve never been interested in things like that.”

Boyett, 60, started work Nov. 21 at the $55,000 a year job, he said this week. His previous salary was $81,000 annually, and his state retirement benefits have been suspended for now, he said.

“We basically created two departments, an inside recreation and an outside recreation,” Kant said this week. “The heads of both those departments now report to General Superintendent James Gillespie.”

With little discussion, the council reorganized both the parks and rec and public works departments at its Nov. 14 meeting.

“I did not feel real comfortable with the vote,” Councilwoman Debbie Quinn said at Monday’s council meeting. “It was basically because the mayor asked us.”

Tom Kuhl, formerly head of all operations at the rec department, is now in charge of outside facilities, including athletic fields, and Boyett is in charge of the rec center itself and swimming pool, as well as tennis courts and Rotary Youth Club, Kant said. Kuhl, who now earns $65,000 annually, has worked for the city since 1998 and was second-in-charge at the parks department when Boyett retired in 2009. He was promoted to Boyett’s job shortly thereafter and moved into his large corner office at the rec center.

Boyett has returned to that office, with Kuhl moving to a smaller one next door. That smaller office was formerly used by recreation center supervisor Elizabeth Chandler, who resigned suddenly and without explanation from her $40,000 a year job in September.

Editor’s note: This is the latest article in a series on Fairhope personnel policy and staff changes.