The Human Resources and Information Technology Committee met 05/25/2022. The three action items they took up were all requests to over hire positions prior to the departure of three different employees. All three of the requests were fairly basic and all three were approved unanimously. While perhaps not hugely interesting, the request and discussions around the requests do illustrate some of the issues and considerations that come up within City Government on a regular basis.
The first request was for the City Assessor position. Community and Economic Development Director Karen Harkness explained that the long-time City Assessor was retiring in the middle of August. The position was highly technical and regulated so they wanted to over-hire by three weeks in order to allow the departing employees an opportunity to work with her replacement and impart her valuable historical knowledge and technical know-how.
Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) had interacted with the departing employee for a number of years during his previous stint as an alderperson. He concurred that she possessed an incredible amount of knowledge and experience, and he thought her replacement could definitely benefit from working with her.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim asked if they were on track to finding a replacement by the estimated June 2022 deadline.
Human Resources Director Jay Ratchman responded that the interviews had gone really well and they had some candidates that they were very excited about. He thought it would be a tough decision between their final two candidates.
Alderperson Croatt just wanted to confirm for the record that the cost of over-hiring for this position as well as for the other two requests would be coming out of the departmental budgets.
Director Ratchman confirmed that was the case.
The committee approved the request 4-0.
They then moved on to the over hire request for the city’s Payroll Coordinator.
Finance Director Jeri Ohman reiterated the information in the memo to the committee. The current Payroll Coordinator who was retiring in September possessed a wealth of knowledge and experience. Given the many different regulations and requirements the Payroll Coordinator was responsible for meeting, they would like to over hire for 6 weeks which would cover 3 pay periods and 1 monthly reporting cycle.
Alderperson Hartzheim supported this request because she knew, as a former payroll coordinator herself, that there was a lot to know for this particular type of job.
Alderperson Croatt agreed and knew from living with a payroll coordinator that there were a lot of extremely important tasks that had to happen every other week. He was very supportive of having some overlap before the retiring employee departed.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) asked if they were at any risk of not filling this position by the estimated date of 07/25/2022.
Director Ratchman could not, however, answer that question because the application period for the position had not yet closed and they were still gathering applications.
Alderperson Fenton noted for the record that the cost of over hiring for this position would be absorbed within the current Finance Department budget.
The committee proceeded to approve the request 4-0.
The third and final over hire request was for a Purchasing manager.
Director Ohman again reviewed the accompanying memo, noting that the employee had been with the city for 20 years and they would like to over hire for a 3-week period to give time for the retiring employee to provide training on different aspects of the position and transfer knowledge about current issues.
As with the previous two positions, the cost for this would be absorbed within the departmental budget. The application deadline had not yet closed, but as of the morning of the committee meeting, they had received 12 applications so there was a good chance they would be able to hire someone in time.
Alderperson Croatt noted that collectively the three departing employees had provided almost 60 years of service to the city. They possessed an incredibly amount of knowledge, and he hoped they would be able to share that with the new hired.
The committee then went on to approve the final over hire request by a 4-0 vote.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=965179&GUID=5CAFE3D8-08D1-4C19-8FE5-460EAC618A94
Be the first to reply