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Item No: 8B Meeting Date: February 24, 2003 Type of Business: CB City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: James Ericson, Acting City Administrator Item Title/Subject: Continued Discussion Regarding City Administrator Position Introduction: The former City Clerk/Administrator resigned from the position effective December 31, 2002. Since then, the Council has discussed at great length how it should best work to fill the position. The Community Development Director was appointed and has been serving as the Interim administrator during the position’s vacancy. Discussion: Three proposals from executive search firms were initially provided to the Council which were later supplemented by another six proposals. The fees associated with the professional search firms ranged from $9,400 to $24,000 (all assuming the position was started at Step 1.) Given the cost, Council requested additional information as to the possibility of an “a la carte” pricing scheme whereby the City could pick and choose various components of the search process to be completed on a per-hour basis. At the same time, the Council directed staff to investigate if other communities would be willing to assist us through the process, taking on more of the responsibilities for posting the position, advertising, etc., ourselves. Five cities indicated they would be willing to assist Mounds View, however only three cities were in a position to provide immediate assistance. Those cities are Roseville ($32), Maplewood ($100) and New Brighton ($70). It should be pointed out that Roseville was not looking at this as a source of revenue for their city which is why the cost is substantially lower than the others. Further, three search firms indicated they would be willing to provide a per-hour, a la carte service to the City: Labor Relations ($84), FirstSite Staffing ($75) and Springsted $150.) Staff contacted the four lowest respondents (Roseville, FirstSite, New Brighton and Labor Relations to determine how many hours the process would take and how quickly the work could be done. All four entities agreed that it would be difficult to determine the number of hours without knowing in advance the number of applicants. The firms did however “ballpark” the process out between 40 and 80 hours. The next question then is how much time could each entity devote to Mounds View’s process. While Roseville may be the lowest bidder, if they are only able to devote 8 hours per week to the project, I’m not sure that would be the best option. Both Cities have their own personnel and human resources issues to deal with and thus the work they did for Mounds View would understandably be a secondary priority for them. FirstSite and Labor Relations, on the other hand, both indicated if they were selected, the process would receive its top priority. Report on Administrator Vacancy February 24, 2003 Page 2