Donald Unmussig has been reinstated as the county administrator for Cumberland County.

Unmussig originally began serving as county administrator July 15, but resigned in late September due to health problems.

As a result of the November local elections, all five Cumberland board seats will be comprised of new members at the start of the new year. At the Cumberland Board of Supervisors meeting held on the evening of Nov. 12, the current board invited the five newly-elected board members that will begin their terms in January to join them in a closed session meeting to discuss county administrative positions. Upon return to open session, the board announced their decision to reinstate Unmussig as the county administrator.

In an interview with The Farmville Herald Monday, Nov. 18, Unmussig commented on his acceptance of the position.

“The future board reached out to me and I spoke to them at length about the issue that made me make the decision I made in September, which was actually kind of an overreaction to some medical stuff that’s totally fine,” said Unmussig. “They asked me if I’d be interested in coming back. We talked about where I had been working on a lot of assessments on the county and what I wanted to do to help the county move forward and better serve the citizens. They saw it exactly the way I saw it.”

He continued, “We had a lot of synergies to where we would be a good fit — me as their administrator to represent them — and so it all just kind of fell into place and it was a good fit. So they went the next night to the regular board meeting and apparently requested the current board to reinstate me, and they did unanimously from what I understand, and here I am.”

Unmussig stated that he was surprised that the newly-elected board members had reached out to him about returning to the position, but was excited about seeing eye-to-eye with the group about many of their ideas. “I was also really excited that they are all pretty unified on the same goals and objectives that I was, and that’s why I thought it was a very good fit,” he added.

According to Unmussig, Jennifer Crews, who has been serving as both finance director and interim county administrator in Unmussig’s absence, will return to her previous sole position of county finance director. Stephany Johnson, who has been serving as interim assistant county administrator along with her previous position as deputy clerk, will revert back to her title of county deputy clerk.

“The circumstances that caused me to make the decision that I made at the end of September have been resolved,” Unmussig had to say to residents of Cumberland County. “I feel much better now and I’m looking forward to getting back in the saddle and doing what needs to be done to make this government organization as responsive to them as I can.”

“We’ve got a lot of things coming in 2020,” Unmussig commented. “This new board is really excited to hit the ground running and I like a lot of things I heard from them, so I’m looking forward to getting going with it.”