The Marshall County Commissioners approved a motion to create a Highway Superintendent position with a new job description during their meeting Monday morning, November 5th.
By a 2 to 1 vote the commissioners approved moving the head position in the Highway Department from a supervisor to a superintendent.
Marshall County Commission Kurt Garner asked the commissioners to consider approving the job description created by Waggoner, Irwin and Sheele earlier this year when there was a discussion to make an interim superintendent position.
Garner said, “Obviously the council made the decision for us that we will not have an engineer so, you can’t just have a highway supervisor, you have to have a superintendent if you’re not going to have somebody running the department as an engineer.” He then suggested putting the position into play.
There was some question if the administrative position was still in play and Commissioner Garner said he believed it was already eliminated. He said, “When the council created the engineer’s position at the beginning of the year they took away the duo-roll and they had the supervisor’s position and the engineer’s position.”
County Attorney Jim Clevenger said it is the executive branch that decides the structure of the administration and not the council. He said, “If they (the council) did that, they were operating in the wrong lane of traffic.” He went on to say the council may have, from a payment proposition looked at it and said we need to compensate whoever is out there since there hasn’t been an administrator.
Commission candidate Stan Klotz spoke at the meeting and said, “Obviously the dynamics of the board is going to change January 1st. Whoever winds up being the new commissioner, they’re going to be responsible for whatever happens. So, what is two months going to matter? Wait and let the new commissioner have his say-so. He’s going to be responsible. I don’t understand, we’ve been arguing about an engineer for over a year, so what is two months going to matter?”
County Auditor Julie Fox asked the commissioners if they would advertise the job opening because it is creating a new position.
Commissioner Garner said the council created this by denying the funding for the engineer and provided a raise which essentially made a promotion to a superintendent’s position for 2019.
Commissioner Overmyer asked if the County Council had approved the Superintendent’s job description and was told it hasn’t happened yet. He suggested waiting until next week to see what the council does at their meeting on the job descriptions. He also noted that there will be a new commissioner in two months so waiting till after the first of the year might not be a bad idea.
Commissioner Garner said, “The frustrating part for me, and I’m going to be brutally honest is here. What we actually wanted to do was created that engineer’s position in the 2017 budget and at that time we were told, oh no you can’t do that because Lorrie hasn’t turned in her resignation. Now the reality is, Lorrie Baker on several occasions sat there and told the council she wasn’t going to be here the following year. So, it’s frustrating to me because my firm belief was that was the direction that department needed to go. And that was solidified when Mike (Delp) agreed to that. Now it seems like we’ve been thwarted and sabotaged all along the way. This is ridicules. If that’s going to be the position created by the council, by virtue of pay, by virtue of how Kent Irwin laid out the options, then that’s what we need to do.”
Garner then motioned to create the Highway Superintends position and it was seconded by Mike Delp. Both Garner and Delp voted yes while Commission Overmyer voted no.
After the meeting Commissioner Overmyer said he voted against the creation of the position because there was no line item in the 2018 or 2019 budget for a superintendent and no money allocated for the position. He also noted that no time frame of implementation was presented and that the job description has not been approved by the County Council.
