During Monday’s Marshall County Commissioner meeting the question of filling the position currently held by Laurie Baker, Administrative Manager for the County Highway Department came up. Baker submitted her resignation to the commissioner on November 6th and told them her last day would be December 29th.
Marshall County Commissioner Kurt Garner recommended putting the position out for advertisement with the current job description and requirements. He said, “I feel kind of strongly that we may need to look at moving into a county engineer position which would be a slightly different job description. However the current job description includes qualifications for an engineer’s degree.”
Commissioner Mike Delp said, “I echo Kurt’s thoughts on it. I’ve had the same thoughts.” He continued, “As I look at our two job descriptions on the way we’ve got that divided out there right now. To me we just got to make that chain of command clear on who’s responsible for whom.” He suggested an executive session to hammer out the details on the job responsibilities.
Garner said the current requirements for the position are a bachelor degree in business management, public administration or related field of study or an engineering degree or a combination.
Commissioner Overmyer said when the positions were set up the two were put in place as equals.
Delp reiterated that he was not comfortable going forward without having a clear plan of who’s in charge.
Overmyer said, “Laurie and Jason have done a good job over the three year period they’ve been out there. They have brought that department from a disorganized mess. And I’ve seen what they’ve done over the last 3 years and I’ve seen a lot of improvements in the staff out there. It’s been brought back to a group that’s working together for the county.” Overmyer said he is not in favor of an engineer and questioned more money for personnel services which takes away from the roads. He also questioned if there was enough work out there for an engineer.
Commissioner Garner said, “We need to move forward with putting the position out there and advertising for it.” He continued, “It sounds like, even between you two, some miss understanding about what exactly the job descriptions spell out.” His recommendation was to get a person in place and see where their qualities lie and then work out the job description based on that.
Overmyer reminded the other two commissioners that the County Council would have to approve an additional appropriation to fund an engineer position in the county highway department.
Applications will be accepted for the Administrative Manager’s position at the County Highway until December 5th. It was anticipated that interviews would be the week of December 11th.
