Agenda - Council - 04/09/2024 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

City Administrator Hagen said the way they are billing for the recycling service is through a utility bill. He added that an option for this is to pay for it out of the general fund and not charge the residents directly for it. He noted that at the end of the day the residents would still be paying for the service, they would just not see it on the utility bill. The consensus of the Council was to seek out proposals for other open recycling hauling and for another contracted hauler. 2.03: Discuss the potential increase in Planning Administrative Assistant hours to full-time. Community Development Director Hanson reviewed the Staff report concerning increasing the current Planning Administrative Assistant's hours to full time. She discussed the history of this role and the need for full time hours. Councilmember Musgrove said she will not be supporting this. She noted that during last year's budget discussions it was discussed why this position was only at 25 hours rather than a higher number of hours and now they are coming back asking for more hours for this position. She said this is something that she would consider during budget discussions, but not now. She suggested hiring someone who is efficient and able to do a lot of work. She shared that budget discussions will be starting soon and they can revisit this. She asked why they would wait to hire someone until July when they need help now. Community Development Director Hanson explained that this hiring would need to be approved by the Council before they post for applications. City Administrator Hagen added that if the ask was not to increase this position to full time, then they would already have the position advertised. He stated they usually advertise vacant positions for three weeks before they start the interview process which takes another three weeks. He added that they then have to take this to the next Council meeting and anticipate a two-week resignation period for the hired individual before they can fill the role. He noted that the only reason this position is vacant is because the current Planning Administrative Assistant was hired into the Rental Housing Inspector position. Councilmember Specht agreed that this would be a good discussion to have when discussing the budget. He said he would not be able to support this right now and it should be considered with other budget requests. He suggested documenting the need over time so it can be discussed during the budget discussions. Community Development Director Hanson shared that they decided to bring this forward at this time as they need to hire someone now. She noted the fear is that they will hire someone at a part time capacity when this position needs to be full time and if they get approval to change it to full time then the person currently in the position working part time may not be able to work full time and they would have to start the hiring process over again. Councilmember Riley shared that without administrative Staff they have the professionals doing the administrative work and having high paid people doing the wrong job. He said that by having City Council Work Session /March 26, 2024 Page 6 of 9