City officials ready to fill HR position

CELINA - City officials are gearing up to hire a full-time human resource coordinator in the coming months after approving legislation setting the new position's parameters.

After talking about the issue at length for the bulk of the year, councilors at their regular meeting last week passed final reading of an ordinance establishing the position's duties and pay grade.

Mayor Jeff Hazel said interviews likely will be held in December with the goal of having an HR coordinator in place sometime in January, earning in the range of $20.45 to $24.87 per hour.

The coordinator will handle personnel issues as well as payroll records, health care and other functions for a workforce of about 100 employees. The duties are now scattered among auditor Betty Strawn, safety service director Tom Hitchcock, department and union heads and consultant Clemans Nelson & Associates.

"We are going to centralize the human resources duties into this one position, and by doing that, now you have a go-to person for employees," Hazel recently told the newspaper, pointing out the move should ease the auditor's department workload.

The HR coordinator also would help resolve some employee grievances and disputes.

"You want them to have an open-door policy where they can come in and talk about something that might be happening even with a fellow worker, that we don't know about that could be a liability for the city," councilman Jeff Larmore had said earlier this year.

Larmore had likened an HR person to an island.

"Everybody knows if they have a question on anything, they should be able to come to this person, the door goes shut and they can talk about anything they need to talk about," he had said. "That person is qualified and experienced to be able to direct them the way they're supposed to be directed."

The HR coordinator will answer to Hitchcock, and in some cases, the mayor, Hazel said.

"Everybody that works under my elected administration, all the way through, ultimately they would answer to me, but the safety service director is where that person would answer to," Hazel said.

In the event an issue under review is related to the safety service director, the HR coordinator would report directly to the mayor, Hazel noted.

"Because I'm always going to trump that," Hazel told the newspaper. "The mayor will always trump the safety service director. That's just the reality of it, and that's not a problem."

Qualifications call for an associate degree, two years of relevant experience or any equivalent combination of education, experience and training that provides the required knowledge, skills and abilities.

The position was created as pay grade 23 in the non-union salary schedule for non-exempt employees.

Consultant Clemans Nelson & Associates would continue to aid the city with more complex matters, such as guiding negotiations with the city's five unions.

"Any time you get into negotiations, you have to use what's considered your outside firm because they're the ones who are directly attuned to the law," Hazel said. "It does become much more complex for individuals to know about that. Clemans (Nelson & Associates), that's what they do all the time, all day long. This is what they do. They deal with the law. They deal with arbitrations."