HomeMy WebLinkAbout9.g. Resignation of Assistant City AdministratorCITY OF ROSEMOUNT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR ACTION
CITY COUNCIL MEETING DATE: FEBRUARY 4, 1992
AGENDA ITEM:
ASSISTANT CITY ADMINISTRATOR
AGENDA SECTION:
RESIGNATION
NEW BUSINESS
PREPARED BY:
STEPHAN JILK, CITY ADMINISTRATOR
AGENDf?EM # .9
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ATTACHMENTS:
LETTER OF RESIGNATION
APP VE B .
MEMO
STAFFING RECOMMENDATIONS
I have received a letter of resignation from Susan VanderHeyden, our
Assistant City Administrator. Based upon this letter Sue's last day with
the City will be February 28th, 1992.
Sue will be taking a position with the City of Woodbury as their Assistant
City Administrator.
Our task will be to consider Sue's replacement and/or other restructuring
of our staff in order to meet: the needs of,the-community and our staff
support.
Attached please find my comments regarding this matter which outlines a
plan to revise our staff to meet these needs now and in the future.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Motion to accept the resignation of Susan VanderHeyden and to authorize
the City Administrator to proceed to restructure staff as outlined in
his memo of January 29, 1992.
COUNCIL ACTION:
i
0-
k'/Ity of (Rosemount
PHONE (612)4234411
FAX (612) 4235203
January 31, 1992
2875 145th Street Went, Rosemount, Minnesota
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 510, Rosemount, Minnesota 55068-0510
Stephan Jilk
City Administrator
City of Rosemount
2875 - 145th Street West
Rosemount, MN 55068
Dear Steve,
MAYOR
Edward B. McMenomy
COUNGILMEMBERS
Sheila Wasson
James (Red) Stasts
Harry Willcox
Dennie Wippermann
ADMINISTRATOR
Stephan Jilk
Please accept this letter as notice of my resignation, effective
Friday, February 28, 1992. I have accepted the position of
Assistant to the City Administrator with the City of Woodbury.
The City of Rosemount is very fortunate to have the generous and
helpful staff that it does. I will sincerely miss working with
everyone.
The decision to leave the City of Rosemount has been a very
difficult one for me. I have sincerely enjoyed my time with the
City of Rosemount and wish everyone the very best!
Sincerely,
Susan L. VanderHeyden
6verytkings Coomming (Up RosemouvdY
i J recvved paper
TO: Mayor McMenomy
Council Members Klassen, Staats, Willc x, Wippermann
FROM: Stephan Jilk, City Administrator
DATE: January 31, 1992
RE: Susan VanderHeyden Resignation
Staffing Considerations
We are in receipt of a Letter of Resignation from Susan
VanderHeyden. Susan has held the position of Assistant City
Administrator since May 6, 1991. Susan will take a position of
Assistant City Administrator for the City of Woodbury and her
last day of employment with the City of Rosemount will be
February 28th, 1992.
With the resignation of Tracie Pechonick as Economic Development
Specialist and now the resignation of Susan as Assistant City
Administrator we have an opportunity to consider alternatives to
the existing makeup of our staff to meet our continuing expanded
service requirements.
With the establishment of the Port Authority and discussion about
placing an even greater emphasis on economic development within
the city we are afforded now an opportunity to reconsider
staffing requirements and how we can meet them with the least
cost and greatest efficiency.
Present Staffing: In the areas of administrative and economic
development staffing we presently have a structure as follows:
City Administrator
(Port Auth. Executive Dir.)
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Asst. City Administrator
Economic City Clerk
Dev. Specialist
Admin. Secretary
Receptionist
Within these positions all administrative functions, most
personnel functions, health insurance management, city clerk
functions, mail service, packet preparation, election
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coordination, receptionist duties, secretarial duties for
Administration, Port Authority, Economic Development activities
and special project coordination for such projects as the Armory
are performed. The hiring of the Assistant Administrator was to
establish a position that could provide daily leadership to
Economic Development and assist in the administration of special
projects and act as backup to the City Administrator. The
vacating of these two positions .will leave a major gap in the
staffing of the above functions as they relate to the
administrative department and assistance to other departments.
These two positions played a major role in technical as well as
time consuming work being done by the Administration Department.
Replacement of these people will be essential unless we are
willing to accept less in sense of work tasks being completed and
a drop of support in the areas of administrative and economic
development functions.
I would like to ask your consideration to replace both of these
people and to do so I would like to suggest the following
options. These options are not totally defined here in that I am
not providing job descriptions and salary costs, but would
suggest that we would do that if you approve moving ahead.
Option #1: Replace both people with the same required
position responsibilities and maintain the status quo. This
option would hold no change and no cost savings. This option
would allow us, in the future, to upgrade the Economic
Development activity to a division within the Administration
Department with a "manager" of Economic Development and
complimentary staff.
Option #2: Replace Susan VanderHeyden with someone to fill
the Assistant City Administrator position and hire a Economic
Development Manager(EDM). This option would leave the Assistant
Administrator requirements as is but upgrade the Economic
Development specialist position. The EDM would hold
qualifications and experience such that she/he would proceed with
minor supervision and direction, all leadership for our economic
development activity.
This option would provide more staffing support than at the
present but with more expense to the Port Authority since they
would fund the position. Eventually the Economic Development
activity would become a separate division of Administration with
complimentary and supporting staff such as clerical positions.
Option #3: Revise the present staffing structure to emphasize
the true "Administrative functions" and the true "Economic
Development" functions while upgrading the Economic Development
activities and the position that staff would fill.
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This option would consist of:
A) An administrative assistant who would perform all personnel
functions and city clerk activities, prepares agendas, City
Council Information Packets, Port Authority Information
Packets, clerk activities, meetings, maintains "official
files" for the City, oversees elections, processes all
licenses and supervises other administrative personnel
including secretaries and receptionist. Would also act as
City Administrator in her/his absence. This position would
be a slightly downgraded position from that of Assistant
Administrator.
B) Secretary II, who would provide all administrative secretary
support in the Administration Dept., assist the
Administrative Assistant in personnel matters, attend city
council and Port Authority meetings to take minutes, perform
many functions at the direction of the Administrative
Assistant including elections, official file maintenance and
act as the secretary to the City Administrator to coordinate
meetings and schedules. And as "Council Secretary" to
provide clerical support to the Mayor and City Council.
C) Secretary I, who would provide general secretarial and
clerical support to the Administrator, Administrative
Assistant, Economic Development Manager and backup to the
receptionist. Also conduct all mail service activity.
D) Receptionist, who would provide general receptionist duties
for City Hall.
E) Economic Development Manager. Provide all economic
development staffing support to the Port Authority. This
would be an upgraded position from that of Economic
Development Specialist and would be considered a position
which would be held by someone with several years of
experience in the public sector marketing, developing
incentive programs, developing and managing public/private
sector joint projects and the development of financing
programs for such projects. The cost to fill this position
would be greater than we have experienced with the present
position.
Option *3 would look like this:
City Administrator
FAdm I inistrative Assistant
Economic Manager Dev. MI
I Sec! II Sec -I Recep hist
Economic Dev. Specialist
(open)
Economic Dev. Secretary
(open)
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Costs: By upgrading the City Clerk position, the existing
secretary position and hiring a secretary but eliminating the
Assistant Administrator position we would realize a cost savings
the first year of about $19,000 and a second year cost savings of
about $15,000 to the General Fund.
The Port Authority would finance the Economic Development Manager
position. There would be an increase in cost to the Port
Authority to upgrade this position but we would expect a greater
effort and success in meeting our economic development program by
doing so
I recognize the concerns you all have raised regarding the
hiring, even to fill vacancies, of additional personnel.
I would suggest that in considering the following recommendation
that it calls for the employment of the same number of employees
that we currently maintain but with less cost to the city's
general government fund. It also calls for the continued
"sharing" of such positions as the secretaries in Administration.
These positions provide support for all staff in Administration,
including the Port Authority functions, most Fire Dept. clerical,
and several functions for all other departments. Without
replacement of personnel to maintain these services many inner
office support functions and community or "customer" services
will suffer. I ask you to consider this.
I am sensitive to your concerns of the numbers of staff we
maintain and if you are willing to "test our strength" to
determine our need for these staff positions we could make the
following recommended changes, but not fill the secretary I
position for a period of time to see if it will be necessary. I
cannot recommend that because I am convinced we will most
certainly suffer because of it. With several staff members
already spending 50 to 55 hours a week just keeping up, we do
need these people but I most assuredly am willing to try with _a
six month review of the situation.
RECOMMENDATION.
Proceed with Option #3. With this option I believe we can
continue our administrative functions and still broaden our
economic development program. The overall cost to the City -
General Government and Port Authority would be about the same,
possibly slightly higher depending on the final salary structure
for the Economic Development Manager.
I would ask your approval to proceed to develop job descriptions,
salary ranges, advertisements and hiring procedure for the
Administrative Assistant and Secretary "I and II positions.
The Port Authority will discuss this same proposal and recommend
the action to be considered on the Economic Development Manager.
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