Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home City Council continued discussions about whether to keep its Public Works maintenance superintendent position last week and will take it up again at a work session as part of a larger discussion about water and sewer rates.
Any council decision regarding the position would move through the city’s budget process beginning April 21 for the 2016-17 fiscal year.
The work session is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 24 in the City Council Chamber.
Former Mayor Dave Holley approached the council in January suggesting that the city eliminate the position. That’s something that had been on his mind for a couple of years, but he did not plan to raise it until the man in that position retired.
Superintendent Pat Wood died in December, so Holley brought his proposal to the council last month ahead of upcoming budget sessions to make planning for it easier, should the council agree with his proposal.
After approaching the council initially, he met with the city manager about it as the council requested, and then he returned to the council during its regular meeting on Feb. 8.
“With the water and sewer plants now under contract, we no longer have the number of city employees we used to have,” Holley told the council. “Due to budgetary constraints, we are limited to the number of maintenance employees we have in streets and in water and sewer. Most but not all of their duties are routine and require a minimum of scheduling. If we have anything major, it is contracted out. We simply don’t have the number of employees to do everything.”
With the routine duties, “they know the job and get it done,” Holley said. “They know their jobs and do them well and I’m sure will continue to do so even with the added layer of supervision. If we have new employees, there are crew leaders in place to assist with their training.”
The position carries a salary of more than $65,000 per year, Holley said. With benefits and the vehicle assigned to the position, he believes it costs more than $100,000 per year. He believes that more projects to reduce inflow and infiltration are likely, and it doesn’t hurt to have funds available for unexpected needs.
“From a budgeting standpoint, it just doesn’t make sense to me to fund a position that, at best, in my opinion, is marginally needed when we have lots more uses for those funds,” Holley said.
“I think we disagree principally, based on my experience and background, that we do need that supervisory role in that operation,” said City Manager Craig Martin. “You’ve got a significant amount of risk and liability in those utilities, primarily your water and wastewater system and just not having somebody with the knowledge and the certification skills that the DEQ and the Health Department require for the water system making decisions in a supervisory manner I don’t know would be in the best interest of the utilities.”
Martin said he agreed that the staff do a great job.
“Even they, after reading the accounts in the paper, were concerned were they going to have no leadership in that because then they’re going to be thrust upon making decisions that affect the public’s health and safety.”
Councilor Dave Trask said he tended to side with Holley.
“I think that we have been overstaffed there, not because of Pat (Wood, who filled that position) because Pat did a great job, but I think that there’s seven employees down there. I bet you that in the private sector, there’s lots of supervisors who would love to have only seven employees. I think the position should not be filled and use that money toward other things.”
He also believes the Public Works director should move to the maintenance shop instead of City Hall where he can handle supervisory issues directly.
“I think we need to give a message to the Budget Committee and the city manager that if we’re going to fill the position or we’re not going to fill the position, we need to budget accordingly,” Trask said.
Councilor Jeff Goodwin said he also agreed that replacing Wood might not be necessary.
“I think there’s no question that he was doing excellent work. I’d love to have 50 people if we had it in the budget, but we are short on money. That’s all there is to it. I think we need to evaluate that and give it direction.”
Public Works Director Mike Adams said the position is necessary.
“There’s regulations and aspects of the job that is required. Can I do that? Yes. Can I do it in a continuation of the other stuff that I’m doing? No. The position that he had there, the position requires very specific certifications that nobody else on the crew has or is even required to do. There’s some things that we’ve been doing to try to as a stopgap, this current fiscal year, to reevaluate how we can fill that position and what kinds of duties it could be or should be doing.
“We can, perhaps, reassign some things. What we’re doing right now is I’m giving three individuals the opportunity to learn about the position and what it’s going to take. There’s a human resource aspect to it. Right now, I’ve created, if you will, some temporary supervisor training positions that these three individuals have.
“The job is a little bit different than it was 20 years ago. My job is different than it was 20 years ago. It makes sense to re-evaluate when there’s change. It’s an unfortunate opportunity that we have here in that we lost a good man. Those duties that he had remain.
“I would agree that we are understaffed. For the last two years we’ve been down a municipal maintenance position because it has not been able to be funded. Your utilities, water and wastewater and storm water, those are your three most valuable assets that this community has. Without them I don’t know that we’d have the other things that we have in this community as a municipality.”
The council and Adams discussed the certifications, which Wood had. Adams told the council it is possible to have certified people who are not part of the city staff, such as a CH2M Hill employee.
Someone must have “Direct Responsible Charge” of the system, Adams said. That’s part of the required certifications.
Martin noted that the certification issue was hotly contested during union bargaining a few years ago and carries a liability factor.
“If someone makes the wrong decision on your water system, I certainly don’t want to be looking like Flint, Mich., because we made a bad decision, because we don’t have supervisory leadership with the knowledge and the skill set to manage that system in the field, and now we’re telling people to boil their water,” he said.
Trask, a longtime fire department volunteer, said staff members should be getting training necessary to back up leaders.
“In my opinion, we should be training everyone in a position below me to be able to take my position at some point, just like in the fire station,” Trask said. “If the chief’s gone, then the battalion chief should be able to take care of it.
“If you don’t have the certification, I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to get it if you could. I know it’s a schooling thing. That’s a downfall on our part. I don’t know if Pat ever pushed that or not or if someone down there was interested. That’s a cop-out to me. ”
Adams said Woods did attempt to train those below him.
“He certainly did, and it wasn’t for lack of trying,” Adams said. “But it does require somebody to have that will and the ambition and the desire and the ability to go pass the test from the state.”
“And experience,” Martin added.
“That’s just one aspect of it,” Adams said. To take away a mid-level position, for that crew down there, they have came to me and said we need someone in that position. We need somebody we can come to and say, ‘what’s the decision on this?’
“And there’s multiple ways of doing that. I don’t want it to be minimized to the point that we don’t need it. We need more, quite frankly. That’s always going to be the hindrance of our funding capabilities. There’s other parts for the position that, quite frankly, I wasn’t prepared to come and talk about tonight that is necessary for the operation and maintenance of the system.”
“I kind of agree with you that we might need more people.”
“I believe that you can do the job,” Trask told Adams. “I do. If for some reason we’re not able to get that taken care of, then maybe we made a mistake. But I think that a supervisor should be able to handle that many people. In all the things that I’ve ever been involved in, when you’ve got a lot of middle management stuff, to me there’s a level that doesn’t need to be there, and I think this is one of them.”
Adams questioned the motivation behind the move not to fill the position.
“I’m really kind of curious, what’s really driving this?” Adams said. “Is it we’re trying to save costs? Or is it something else? If it’s trying to reduce costs, you know that’s one aspect of it. The item I had on here was to set a meeting so we could discuss the parameters that you wanted to put together with the rate proposals. Staffing levels was kind of one of the topics. In setting the parameters, like I said earlier, we’re already down a position because of funding.”
Councilor Greg Mahler said he believed it was about saving money, and he suggested including it in the work session on rates.
Trask said he believes the council is opposed to filling the position.
“I think if you took a consensus right now on whether we should replace him or not I think you’re going to find out that we don’t want to,” he said.
Adams compared their intent to removing a supervising officer at the Police Department or fire district.
“I liken it to asking the fire chief or the police chief to take out one of their positions,” he said. “I think it would be like asking Chief Barringer to remove a battalion chief. It’s also like asking the police chief to remove a sergeant. It’s similar in my mind, as far as hierarchy.”
Mahler said it comes down to revenue.
“I understand the analogy, but on the same token, if the fire department doesn’t have the funding to pay for that battalion chief, then you’re going to see it down one battalion chief, work with what you have,” Mahler said.
“I’ve got a department of 22 people, counting myself,” Adams said. “With two or three largest assets of the organization, we’ve got a lot to manage.
“Having somebody at that physical location to deal directly on a day-to-day basis with the maintenance crew that’s out there and the mechanic, can I be located down there? Absolutely. I’m down there part of the time right now as kind of a stopgap, and I’m learning more about that position. That’s what I’m going to respectfully ask that you consider, as far as the operation of the utilities and the street system, the public facilities that we operate and maintain, as well as the other stuff that I’m involved with.
“Even though CH2M Hill is operating the plants, they’re still ours. We still have to have that management oversight. I’m overseeing that contract. I’m overseeing those people, only through one person as opposed to a whole team.
“My request, quite frankly, is going to be adding people.”
The maintenance superintendent position remains vacant and will remain vacant through July, Martin said.
“The reason we’re not able to fill the position until July is because we had an employee that had been here for a long time, and when an employee dies, we do have a death benefit provision in the city’s personnel policies that compels us to pay a portion of their unused sick leave that doesn’t apply if somebody just leaves voluntarily or is terminated or retires.”
The city pays for part of accrued sick leave and vacation, said Finance Director Pat Gray. The city has issued checks for $21,000 and $30,000.
In other business, the council appointed Brent Gaskey to the All-Hazard Mitigation Committee.