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Committee presses to accelerate hiring; city planner identified as top priority
Summary
Committee members and staff discussed prolonged vacancies in planning and engineering and urged faster hiring steps; members recommended placing a contingency recruitment agreement for the city planner on the next Common Council agenda.
Committee members on May 6 expressed urgency about multiple long-term vacancies — including the city planner, civil engineer, community development director and public works director — and asked staff to accelerate recruitment steps, with an emphasis on filling the city planner role first.
Human Resources Director Sarah Dressel reviewed open positions and recruitment steps, saying the city uses internal job posting, Indeed, specialized job boards such as APWA for public works, and social media, and that prolonged vacancies were causing operational strain on remaining staff. Dressel said the city has tried internal recruitment and recommended using outside recruiting firms for some roles: contingency recruiters for mid-level positions at a typical fee of 20–25 percent of a candidate’s first-year salary, and retained executive searches for director-level roles with higher retainer costs.
Committee discussion cited specific vacancy durations: the city planner position vacant since October 2022, the civil engineer since April 2023, the community development director intermittently vacant since April 2022, and the public works director since October 2024. Committee members noted the city is currently paying a consultant at roughly 10 hours per week at about $149 per hour for planner duties and said those consultant costs argue for hiring a full-time planner. Members also pointed to Wisconsin’s low unemployment (3.2 percent in March) and competition from larger employers as contributing to recruiting difficulties.
Members asked staff to return with concrete, costed recruitment strategies (job boards, relocation assistance, attendance at job fairs, or use of recruiting firms) and to propose a shorter, faster hiring process to avoid losing candidates. Several members proposed placing a contingency recruitment agreement for the city planner on the next Common Council agenda; staff confirmed the committee could send the item to council for action next Tuesday. No formal motion to expend funds for recruitment was recorded at the committee meeting; the committee gave direction to staff to prepare materials and, if desired by council, to begin the recruitment process.
