A job opening in the city’s administration department will not be posted immediately as the Rice Lake City Council awaits the results of a citywide personnel needs assessment report.
City Clerk-Treasurer Kathy Morse asked permission to post a full-time office clerk vacancy. The position has been empty more often than not over the past year, with temporary help filling in for a short period of time last summer. The latest employee came onboard in January but is leaving to take a job closer to home.
But Council Member Gina Sookiayak hesitated, wanting to know if there was an immediate need in light of the upcoming citywide personnel needs assessment.
“We don’t know how all of those pieces are going to shake out … I need to have a better understanding of the immediate need to have that position filled,” she said.
Morse said the position works with the building inspector processing applications, prepares agenda packets for City Council and other committees, is cross-trained to support the municipal court clerk and the elections clerk, is the main person to answer the incoming phone line, and provides administrative support to the city administrator’s and mayor’s offices, among other duties.
Sookiayak also hesitated because it took a long time to fill the position in the past and the last employee stayed only a few months. She wanted to see how the department is structured as a result of the personnel needs assessment to better fill that position.
“I’m wondering if there’s a potential for a temporary position,” she said, to which Morse responded that according to policy she could fill the position on a temporary basis for up to six months.
“In the current job market, it’s even tough to find somebody on a temporary basis,” Morse continued, and she already has reached out to Manpower, which is looking into their pool of workers. “I don’t know if Manpower will be successful or not.”
The personnel needs assessment report is scheduled to be presented to the council at its second meeting in May, but work currently is behind schedule by about a week, interim City Administrator Shawn Murphy said.
The council settled into further discussion after a motion came to the floor to post the vacancy.
Sookiayak again stated the council could be locking the city into the current organization of the department before the personnel needs assessment is reviewed.
But considering the position’s past history, it may not get filled by May, Council Member Jim Resac pointed out, to which Sookiayak responded that in the meantime the council will have authorized it to be filled.
Resac asked Morse what the odds were that it would be filled before the personnel needs assessment presentation.
“Zero percent,” she replied.
Council members discussed saying upfront in the job description that the position duties could change depending on the personnel needs assessment. Sookiayak asked, if that deters candidates, why spend money on advertising the opening?
Council Member Mark O’Brien didn’t want to tell a new hire that they aren’t going to do what they were hired to do and make employees unhappy.
“As bad as I think Kathy needs a person, I think for the loyalty of the people we hire we need to make sure we want them for what we hire them for,” he said.
The motion to post the position was defeated as O’Brien, Resac, Sookiayak and Harlan Dodge voted no to the yes votes from Marlene Dirkes, Todd Larson and Doug Edwardsen. Steve Brown was absent.
Instead, the council voted to hold off on hiring a full-time position in administration until after hearing the results of the personnel needs assessment.
During discussion Morse said administration has been “bogged down” for a year and a half and staff members — including herself — are getting burned out. Sookiayak said she hopes they can get somebody in temporarily.
Larson and O’Brien voted against the motion to postpone filling the position.
In other action, the council:
• Set a public hearing for rezoning a parcel from estate residential to highway commercial for May 14. Menard, Inc., made the request to allow for the construction of self-storage units at the southeast corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Highway 0.
• Approved postponing a street and utility project on West South Street from Pioneer Avenue to Main Street until 2025 due to delays in coordinating with the railroad. Current plans for the crossing include widening the street and adding a 5-foot sidewalk on the north side.
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