October 6, 2017 at 4:11 p.m.
Council to discuss future of city administrator
Panel to weigh the pros, cons of part-time post
Council to discuss future of city administrator
The special meeting may be held as soon as the end of the month, following a preliminary discussion at Tuesday's meeting of the city's finance, wage and salary committee.
Kost was hired Feb. 13 to serve in a part-time capacity. Prior to that, the position had been vacant since Aug. 29, 2016 when the council terminated Kristina Aschenbrenner. After discussing the idea of hiring a full-time interim administrator, the finance committee decided not to pursue that approach. Mayor Dick Johns, former finance director Julie Ostrander, city clerk Val Foley and department heads shared the responsibilities of the office through the rest of 2016.
At the Jan. 9 council meeting, Kost told the alderpersons he was interested in serving on an interim basis, but only part-time. He said he approached finance chair Mark Pelletier with the idea in late 2016. Although many alderpersons had heard from city residents who were opposed to changing the position to part-time, the council accepted Pelletier's recommendation that they hire Kost on an interim basis and evaluate later if the switch was working.
The council approved a contract that would pay Kost $51,000 for three-day work weeks, typically Monday through Wednesday, although it was understood that he might need to occasionally put in additional time to effectively conduct city business.
The subject of Kost's contract first came up at the finance committee's budget review meeting Sept. 28 when the subject of the 2018 administrator's budget was discussed.
Under the proposed budget, the salary line item for the department was listed at $109.997, which includes half of the salary for administrative assistant Stephanie Rajnicek's position. Kost and finance director Wendi Bixby said the figure was based on what a full-time administrator would make if one were hired.
With Kost receiving a part-time salary, the department is projected to save $88,7222 from the $599,388 budgeted for 2017. The proposed 2018 budget is set at $573,307, down $26,081 from this year.
The item was on Tuesday's finance committee agenda as a discussion-only item, meaning no vote could be taken on the matter.
"Looking back at the minutes, this was a discussion that we were going to have when we hired Keith in the first place as an interim, part-time," Pelletier said, introducing the topic.
According to Pelletier, the key question is does the city need to revisit the idea of having a full-time administrator or has Kost done the job well enough for the city to give him a new, open-ended contract and keep him in place on a part-time basis?
"Or is the part-time working out only because it is Keith and if Keith were to say 'I am done' do we have to look at a full-time?" Pelletier added.
Because the decision affects the 2018 budget it needs to be made sooner rather than later, he added.
"It would be foolish not to get some kind of discussion going here," Pelletier said.
Alderperson Sherrie Belliveau said the discussion should start immediately, but the committee members need a copy of Kost's current contract as well as those of previous administrators.
"I think, based on my experience in how this has been handled in the past, it wouldn't be a bad idea that when we come to a consensus on what we want to do as this committee, then we need to bring the entire council in for a final decision," Belliveau said. "Instead of us talking about it all and then getting it to council and three other people going 'wait a minute, I don't like that idea,' and then we have to go back to the drawing board."
Pelletier agreed.
"When you are talking about a major step forward, something like this, the more discussion the better," he said.
He then floated the idea of holding a special council meeting devoted to just the city administrator topic.
"Sit down and actually wrestle with the idea, obviously there are pluses and minuses of going to a full-time administrator," Pelletier said.
Alderperson Dawn Rog said she would like to examine the history of how Rhinelander arrived at the decision that it needed a city administrator in the first place. The first administrator was Phil Parkinson, and Rog noted he had a long history with the city as the city attorney as well as a familiarity with Rhinelander as a whole. When he retired, Rog said the council searched for someone with many of his qualities.
"It's not so much the job, it is we had someone whose main focus was the best interests for the taxpayers and the city of Rhinelander," Rog said. "And I question what happened after that with the three that were hired. Was it really their best interests and can we compare what we started with and we need to look at that, where we got with the people that were hired."
Pelletier said there are so many factors when the city is in the market for a full-time administrator and he pointed at Kost at the end of the table.
"You've got somebody here who has been in town all this time that owns a home in town, who not only had a business in town, but as the attorney for the Cleary Foundation was familiar with so much stuff. And when he gets done with work, he goes home to be here in town," Pelletier said. "And he's retired from his position already. So the day he kisses us goodbye or we kiss him goodbye, you got your Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and a good part of your Thursdays off. But when you hire somebody who's trying to improve how they look as an administrator, they have a tendency to maybe not do what in the long-term is best for the community because they're looking to move themselves up into a better community, a richer community, a larger one, a $20,000 more a year. And we've watched that happen a couple of times. They're looking at making things better for themselves."
"The first one was Phil, and we thought that was the avenue to go," Rog said. "You have something now and it's not broken, do you go out and try to fix it?"
"That's why there are so many factors involved with this," Pelletier agreed. "If we didn't have Keith, I think we would have to look at a full-time (administrator)."
Belliveau said the matter has to be revisited because Kost's contract will expire in just over two months.
"So our hands are tied, we have to revisit it. And we promised the city taxpayers that this would be a one-year contract which we would look at again," she said. "But personally I don't see a day where we, as a council, go back to not having a city administrator. We spent more time as a council with personnel issues and stuff that is really none of our business and not setting policy which was the job that we were elected to do."
Belliveau suggested putting the matter on a future finance agenda for further discussion.
"And it might not be a bad idea to have the previous administrator contracts to see what we did wrong," she added.
Rog suggested it might be a good idea to re-examine the role of the city administrator and the job description.
"Both of you have said how employee conflicts have been dealt with, some of them didn't go well in the past," Rog said. "Things seem to be evening out now, so there is a lot at play that we need to look at and some of the situations that the city had been in in probably the last eight years.
"Eight years and we've gone through three full-time (administrators)," she added later.
Pelletier said hopefully the council can learn from everything that happened over the last eight years.
He then asked Johns for his thoughts.
"I've got some theories that happened with this entire community, as well as the City Council, in regards to the position of mayor versus the administrator," Johns said. "I'd like to bring those out, but I'm not going to bring them out at this time."
He added he didn't know when he would clarify his remarks but said he would at some point.
"I feel that what's happened here in regards to the position of mayor of the city of Rhinelander has fell by the wayside due to the fact of things that have happened," Johns added. "I don't want to say anymore at this stage of the game."
Pelletier agreed with Johns that the role of mayor has changed under the last three city administrators.
"I think the City Council had less input, less knowledge. I think we took a little bit of a backseat, and I feel that we are much more involved now," he said. "I think we're much more involved not only as a group, but individually our knowledge of the stuff that's going on, I think our input has become more vital. I think we sat back and figured the administrator was going to take care of this stuff, and all of the things that were taken care of weren't necessarily - and not speaking about anyone differently than another - weren't necessarily 100-percent beneficial to the community. And that isn't even intentional on their part, they don't know the community, they haven't lived here to know what flies and what doesn't."
Alderperson Alex Young said the finance committee could hold a special meeting devoted to just the administrator position and invite the other three alderpersons to attend.
"The reason we made (Kost) an interim administrator and put off the decision on whether or not to fill the position with a full-time person or not was that we wanted some time to see how it worked," Young said. "Because what we're talking about is a fundamental change to the structure of how the city is governed. That's a big enough issue and obviously the mayor's got some things he wants to say about it and his opinion on how it's worked. It's a big enough issue that I don't think we can tie it up in a budget meeting when we got a number of other items on the agenda."
Members of the
community would probably want to offer some input as well, he noted.
Belliveau pointed out that if the matter is handled in a special committee meeting, the other three alderpersons may be in attendance, but they won't be able to vote, so a special council meeting would be the ideal way to handle the matter. This would also allow for public input because presently that is only allowed at public safety committee meetings.
"I think we need to get the pertinent information to all parties involved ahead of time," Belliveau said. "That way we can look at all the previous contracts, job descriptions so that we're not wasting time."
Pelletier suggested discussing potential meeting dates when the council meets Oct. 9.
"Keith's got to decide if he wants to stick around, too." Young noted.
"As I've told all of you, I'm enjoying what I'm doing and if you want me to stay in basically the same situation, I'm happy to do it," Kost replied. "If you want to go a different way, I'll be happy to stay until you get somebody hired. I'll be happy to stay for a couple weeks after that to help them out. I live here, I don't plan to pack a bag and leave."
"I like the idea of telling everybody that the night of Monday's council, here's what we're going to provide to everybody, here's why, here's what we're looking at doing and we want everybody's input," Pelletier said. "That way everybody has a fair chance to go over everything."
Belliveau noted that a special meeting of the full council would cost about $1,000, but they are very rarely called.
"I do feel that some things are important enough to absorb that expense," she added.
"If we are looking at saving or spending $50,000 a year, I think that's a good investment of $1,000," Pelletier observed. "And a direction, even if we weren't saving or spending the extra money, what direction are we going if that isn't it. How many special council meetings do we have? I think this is the year I've seen the least of any. I don't even think we've had one."
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