Minutes - Council Work Session - 08/23/2022

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Administrative Services Director Lasher mentioned that the idea of hiring a search firm was brought up; however, she and City Administrator Hagen believe that hiring can be handled in house. She added that Ramsey is not alone in this as she spoke with the City of Farmington today and Farmington is also hiring for a Community Development Director and the Farmington post has been up since August 3 and will be coming down in a few days. Farmington has only received seven candidates and two of the candidates might be worthy of interviewing. She noted that the City of Stillwater also went through a similar process and it took Stillwater three times through the process to hire anyone. She said that Ramsey is not alone and she believes that the City just needs to stay the course. She noted the pay is competitive and should not need adjusting. She mentioned that another option for doing something different for the recruiting process would be to add back the Deputy City Administrator portion of the title, but that is not Staff’s recommendation. She added that she and City Administrator Hagen have discussed that they do not think there is a need for the Deputy City Administrator unless the Council feels otherwise. Councilmember Specht asked if there was anything that could be done in the meantime to assist Staff by alleviating some extra work. Administrative Services Director Lasher said that the recent staffing changes have helped her tremendously and things are going great. Acting Mayor Riley asked if there is a plan to try again with the interview process right away or if a break should be given before relisting the job posting. Administrative Services Director Lasher expressed that the panel should try again right away because there is currently only one competing listing, which is from the City of Farmington. She mentioned that the Staff and Community Development are managing but would probably like to have someone on board as soon as possible. Mayor Kuzma added that he supports the recommendation to relist the job posting to get the right person on board, as well as keeping the hiring in house. Acting Mayor Riley asked if the Council all felt good with this recommendation. Councilmember Musgrove asked what day the posting would be back up and if the panel would get back to the Council on when the first round of information would be coming out. Administrative Services Director Lasher mentioned that three positions were posted yesterday so based on that she would like to have it back up by Friday after making the posting look more exciting. The consensus of the Council was to keep the hiring in house and relist the job posting right away. 2.02: Continued Discussion/Review of 2023 Budget/Levies City Council Work Session / August 23, 2022 Page 2 of 16