Fireworks Over Mount Pleasant Administrator Job Description

has a job description for the Village Administrator position, but whether or not it qualifies as "new" is a matter of contention among trustees.

With a vote of 5-2, the job description was adopted at the Oct. 24 Village Board meeting. Trustees Gary Feest and Jerry Garski dissented.

In addition to some grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors, the issue was whether or not the fire, police and finance department heads would report to the Administrator. Trustee Karen Albeck said she believed those three departments would report directly to the board, but in the job description it clearly says the Administrator provides "direction and coordination of all employees of the Village ..."

"Police, fire and finance should come directly to the board," she said.

But Trustee Harry Manning, chair of the personnel committee where the job description was compiled and composed, said the committee was not charged with changing the reporting relationships.

"Reporting relationships are separate issues," he said. "The committee was not charged with that aspect, and I believe that would apply more to the personnel manual."

Albeck didn't buy it, saying the job description is inclusive so reporting relationships could and should have been changed. Further, she said she was surprised to see the job description on the meeting agenda.

"I thought this would be a discussion, not a debate and a vote," she said. "We should hold this over until we can get police, fire and finance here."

As for the grammar issues, Manning voiced his concern that these were being addressed during a board meeting instead of during the committee.

"I don't know that this is the best way to do this," he commented.

Albeck shook her head.

"Well, I couldn't stand the way you were running the (Oct. 20 committee) meeting, which is why I left," she said. "So I'm doing it here."

Trustee Sonny Havn said there will be an organizational chart to help with issues so the village doesn't get caught in situations from when previous administrators held the position.

"Police and fire will work with the administrator so they're not running to the board with every little thing," he said. "I think we need to move this along."

Feest and Garski sided with Albeck, saying that if the document needed to be cleaned up and there were questions about who reports to whom, the matter should be held over.

"This document as a job description does not address many of the checks-and-balances issues we've discussed in previous meetings," Feest said. "I would prefer we get the corrections done and get police, fire and finance here before we go any further."

But the board did move forward, approving Albeck's grammatical corrections and changing some language to somewhat remove the Administrator overseeing all aspects of all departments.

Garski remains unhappy because he says the job description just puts the village back where it was.

"This change is no change at all, it's pathetic," he said after the meeting. "If finance, police and fire report to the Administrator, we are in danger of falling back. I will never support this job description."