City Commission Backs City Manager's Hiring Request

Amid recent discussions of possible city layoffs and budget cuts, it looks like Royal Oak City Manager Donald Johnson is going to get some help in the office.

Thursday night, during the first of three special budget workshops – and with an audience of one person in – the City Commission discussed the 2011-12 and 2012-13 budget documents to be approved on June 6, including adding a part-time employee for the city manager in the upcoming fiscal year budget at a salary of $20,000.

Currently, the city manager and the city attorney share one full-time administrative assistant. The arrangement began last year when Johnson’s secretary retired.

“This arrangement works well about 60 percent to 70 percent of the time,” Johnson said. However, he said, it often doesn’t work at all because when the employee is off, both departments are without a clerical staff.

If approved, the city manager would hire an additional part-time employee to work about 23 hours a week.

City Commissioner Terry Drinkwine said he would be fine if the city manager asked for a full-time administrative assistant. “To me, there is a cost of doing business in this town, and while I don’t want to have an overabundance of people … certainly the city manager’s office is the most vital,” Drinkwine said.

Johnson said he appreciates the support, but he wouldn’t ask to fill a position that is already empty in the manager’s office when he’s asking other departments to make cuts.

Mayor Jim Ellison said he supports the budget addition, stressing that under the current sharing arrangement, there are clerical duties that are not being taken care of, including sending mayoral correspondence. Johnson said the help is needed to keep up with even basic services such as answering phone calls.

Commissioner Patricia Capello said she would support the part-time position, but wanted to make sure that would be sufficient. “I don’t want you to put yourself in a bottleneck position either,” she said.

Commissioner David Poulton, who advocated for shared services during the evening, said he appreciates the city manager determining other ways to get the job done instead of hiring another full-time employee.