City may vote to NOT hire a new city administrator

[May 17, 2018] 

LINCOLN 

After quite a bit of debate on Tuesday evening, Lincoln aldermen agreed to place a motion on the Monday night voting session that would, if passed, verify that the city will not be hiring a full time city administrator in the foreseeable future.

However, discussion will continue on how to address the need of an administrative leader within the city. Discussions over the last few weeks have included the idea of hiring a part-time manager, or hiring an administrative assistant who would have a particular skill set. Those discussions are still pending completion.

On Tuesday night, the aldermen considered tabling the original vote, but were urged by Mayor Seth Goodman to make some kind of decision because inquiries are still being made about whether the city was seeking applicants, and his office needs to know how to answer those inquiries.

The discussion on this topic began at the Committee of the Whole meeting held on April 16th. It was not an item on the agenda, but at the end of the night during ‘Other discussion’ Steve Parrott brought it up. He said that he was not going to be able to attend the next COW, and was requesting that the council not talk about the city administrator position until he could be there to participate in the discussion. Jeff Hoinacki also noted that he would be absent. Parrott’s request led to an impromptu discussion on the matter.

Up to this time, most of the work toward hiring a new administrator had taken place outside of the council meetings. But on this night, aldermen said that they were not impressed with the candidates that had been presented to them by GovHR.

Both Parrott and Heidi Browne stated that they didn’t like any of three candidates GovHR had sent to them and Tracy Welch said he agreed. However, Hoinacki noted that so far all the aldermen had seen were resumes and other documents. He said that without interviewing the candidates the city might not have a good picture of the three individuals.

Parrott said another concern was that the average term of employment for these applicants had been three to six years. He said he would prefer to hire someone with some longevity because the city shouldn’t be doing this every couple years as it has thus far.

Parrott also noted that he felt hiring someone with local ties might be a better way to achieve that long term employee.

Rick Hoefle noted that the city has been moving forward pretty well without a city administrator, and he wondered if there was a need to hire anyone at all.

City Treasurer Chuck Conzo remarked that delaying the hiring would save the city money. He also suggested that instead of a city administrator, maybe all that was needed was an administrative assistant.

At the end of the April 16th discussion, the majority of the aldermen agreed without voting that the three candidates would be rejected and the city would not move forward with GovHR.

This week the item was on the agenda for discussion. Ron Keller was among the first to speak, saying he felt that much of this decision should be based on the opinions of the people who have to work on a day-to-day basis with a city administrator – department heads, the city clerk, and the city treasurer. He felt that the city should continue to search for a new administrator. Hoinacki took Keller’s point a step further and asked Police Chief Paul Adams to comment on how a city administrator would have impacted the construction of the new police station.

Adams said that the project had begun while Clay Johnson was still with the city. Johnson had gotten the project off to a good start, but then upon leaving the task of seeing everything through was left to Adams.

Adams said it was an area where he had little to no experience, and while the project had moved forward, it had also taken time from Adam’s true job description as the chief of police.

Welch said that he felt that the city administrator did not just work with department heads. The person filling the position needed to work well with the council. He went on to say that he did not believe the city needed a full time administrator, that a part-time person could fulfill the needs of the city.

It was also mentioned that the search for a new hire should be done locally, though not necessarily in Logan County, at least from the central Illinois region.

Hoefle said that it had been five months to the day since the departure of Bob Mahrt, and he felt that aldermen had done well in moving the city forward without the administrator. He noted that while he did not “fault” aldermen who had fulltime jobs for not having extra time to work for the city, aldermen such as himself who were retired could afford to give more time. He said he felt like the city could be managed without a city administrator.

Michelle Bauer said that the city needed to vote on whether or not it even wants a city administrator, then move forward from there.

She also suggested that the city might want to consider changing the job description. She said, “If we want a city administrator, what do we want and need.” She went on to say she felt like it would be difficult to hire a city administrator in a part-time position.

Conzo again said that the city could consider hiring a lessor position, such as an administrative assistant.

The discussion moved to perhaps voting to hire a part-time person or an assistant. Bauer said she didn’t feel it would be right for the city to vote on a position that has not yet been defined.

Hoefle had said that the city has a budget of $70,000 for a CA. However, that isn’t enough to hire a highly qualified person, and it is going mean that anyone who takes the job is taking it as a stop over to somewhere else.

If the city hired someone part-time, then the salary would be less and would better fit into what the city can afford.

Parrott wondered what a part-time person would look like. Would it be half the weekly hours, someone that would work for less money, and/or someone with a lower skill set?

In the end, aldermen considered postponing any kind of vote until they had done more research on the alternatives. However, Goodman asked that they entertain a motion to, or not to, hire a fulltime CA. He said his office is still getting inquiries about the city’s intentions, and he needs to know how to answer those inquiries.

The council is currently split on this topic, so predicting the outcome of the vote next week is not possible. If the city votes to NOT hire a full time city administrator, then they will move forward with deciding who to hire, a part-time CA or perhaps a full- or part-time administrative assistant. In either case, they will need to write a new job description, and create a new or modified position via city ordinance.
 

If the motion to NOT hire a fulltime city administrator fails, then the search process will resume. However, that process may change including looking for someone more local, and redefining the job description.

It is expected that the motion will be included in the agenda for the Monday, May 21st meeting. However, as always, the aldermen have the right to table any item they feel they are not prepared to vote upon.

[Nila Smith]