Committee approves restructured engineering‑technician role amid discussion of staff turnover and hiring practices

The Finance & Human Resources Committee voted on July 21 to amend the utility‑technician job description to an engineering‑technician role focused on construction inspection, CAD work and GIS asset maintenance. Staff explained the change followed the May departure of the prior worker and the 2024 hiring of an in‑house staff engineer; the new role emphasizes construction observation, CAD skills and updating GIS asset maps. Staff said the position will be funded from capital and utility project budgets in proportion to the time the employee charges to those projects and that time will be tracked on timesheets. "So next year when we reconstruct Concord, we can either use borrowed funds to pay an employee at the village of Weston, or we can use those funds to pay an outside entity to oversee the project," staff said. Nut graf: the committee approved the reclassification to better align in‑house skills with recurring needs (inspection, mapping, construction observation) and to reduce outsourced consultant costs. The position will not add headcount; it fills an existing vacant position and is expected to be hourly and charged to projects when the employee works on them. Committee members probed fiscal details, asking whether the position’s pay and hours would be billed to capital projects while construction is active and where wages would be charged during slower periods. Staff said winter design and mapping work would be billed to capital or utility project funds as appropriate and confirmed they expect the position’s total annual cost to compare favorably with consultant billing rates. The committee also reviewed staff turnover and recruitment practices elsewhere in the meeting. A staff speaker described several recent departures and reasons given — Will Harrison (left to move closer to family), Peter Barazan (found role mismatch after about a year), and David Treba (left to pursue electrician training). Committee members discussed pre‑hire job shadowing, practical interview exercises and second interviews to reduce early attrition. Decision and next steps - Formal action: committee approved the proposed amendments to reclassify the utility‑technician position to an engineering/construction oversight technician and to fund it from capital and utility project funds proportionally when the employee works on those projects. - Implementation: staff will post the amended description, recruit candidates with CAD/GIS experience and track time on projects for appropriate billing. Context Public comment earlier in the meeting also flagged turnover: a resident said, “in 9 weeks, village staff has lost 10 of its staff.” That was a public comment and not part of staff’s headcount report; staff said they will bring an exit‑interview synopsis to the committee next month.