Committee refers new community development coordinator job and salary range to finance panel

The Building and Housing Committee of the University Heights City Council on Monday reviewed a revised job description for a proposed community development coordinator and voted to refer the ordinance that would add the job and its salary range to the finance committee for further consideration.

Committee Chair Winifred Weiser opened the discussion by describing Ordinance 2024-?77 as an amendment to the salary ordinance to add the community development coordinator role and “establish the pay range therefore.”

The nut of the discussion focused on the scope of the position and whether the salary in the ordinance matched the clarified duties. Markell Davis, director of housing and community development, summarized the role as primarily to “coordinate [and] manage the city's grant application administration processes to support community development initiatives,” and to “research funding opportunities, prepare competitive grant applications in collaboration with city departments and community partners.”

Davis said the position would serve as a resource to other departments rather than taking over specialized grant work: “I think the keyword would be consultation. I think the hope is that we can hire somebody with grant writing experience that may be able to lend a hand, but not own the grant writing for other departments.”

Councilwoman Sherry Sachs pressed for clarity about whether the coordinator would be expected to write grants for departments such as fire or public safety. Sachs said consultation “kinda doesn't mean anything” in practice and emphasized that some departmental grants are “very technical.” Davis and other committee members agreed the coordinator’s primary responsibility would be community development grants and that assistance to other departments would be consultative and secondary.

After brief discussion about where final salary review belongs, the committee voted to refer the ordinance and the updated job description and salary range to the City Council finance committee for review and recommendation. Chair Weiser noted the referral was intended so finance could evaluate the pay range now that duties were clarified.

The referral passed without opposition and moves the item off the Building and Housing Committee agenda pending the finance committee’s review.