03/30/1999 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Special Council Minutes of 3/30/99 accountability through oversight of incoming tax revenue. While this position will be .,~,,: created with agreement of Council in discussion during appropriations hearings, much has been said about the rate of pay. He believes Mrs. Copfer has presented compelling reasons for the position and equally compelling reasons fora $45,000 to $55,000 pay range. Chief among the compelling reasons Mrs. Copfer presented were the need to attract a CPA with experience in government accounting to hit the ground running in addressing these issues once that person is brought on staff. A majority of Council disagrees and believes a qualified candidate can be found at a rate of $35,000 per year. Such a position, the majority must believe, could be trained on the job and work their way into an Assistant Director of Finance position. He strenuously disagrees. He does not believe that we have the time to train such a person and to bring them to the point they need to be to address these concerns. We need somebody with government accounting previous experience. While we may have saved $20,000 this year by reducing the salary range for the Assistant Director of Finance, he hopes he is wrong when he says that it may cost us much more in the future. Roll call continued: Limpert, yes, with comment that, as chairperson of the Long-Range Planning Committee, he has a great deal of concern over the future financial commitments of this city. He believes now is the time to spend money to save money, not to spend it just to spend it. For example, he supported the new aeration baffles at the WWTP. Although Council agreed on this item, they did not agree to provide a merit raise to the Personnel Director. All male directors earn at the top of their pay range. He commented that the city has experienced exploding health care costs, which have quadrupled from 1990 through 1996. Ms. Popa, brought in a consultant to start fixing the problem. A $10,000 investment is now saving us $44,000 a year in administrative expenses. She did a risk analysis of the city's liability coverage and discovered the city grossly underinsured. She has increased our coverage while reducing our premiums by $20,000 a year. For those reasons, he is supporting a 13.9% raise, putting her on a level in her pay range with her male counterparts. Mrs. Kasler successfully argued that there is no place in government for merit raises. He believes, however, that in 1995 she put in for an 11.28% merit raise for Rec Commissioner Dolansky and an additional 11.5% for him in 1996 when Springvale was added to his responsibilities. In 1995, Sara White received a 14.7% merit raise as our data processing individual and Mrs. Kasler received a 13.4% raise as Safety Director to bring her on a level with her male counterparts. None of those recipients justified their raises in such dollars and cents savings as we have seen in the last twelve months in Personnel. He believes Mrs. Popa is a highly trained professional and has experience that for a long time has been needed in the department. The Assistant Finance Director is another issue. Mrs. Copfer has an extensive public accounting and accounting management background as a corporate controller. She was elected by the people of North Olmsted to do a job. She has evaluated the tools required to perform that job efficiently and he believes Council is now denying those tools. We are fortunate to have a Finance Director who can do any of the tasks required by this city. Unfortunately, there are not enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. Many of these functions cannot be performed by clerks. Some of those tasks are tax audits and GAAP conversions. For many years, we have paid approximately $12,000 a year to have our GAAP conversions done outside. These tasks required an experienced, degreed professional. Two previous Finance Directors have recognized the need for an assistant, x.,~~ 3