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Owensboro approves multiple personnel appointments; HR reports vacancies improving but continued recruitment needed
Summary
The commission approved a slate of hires, promotions and regular-status appointments and heard from HR about current vacancies, upcoming police academies and seasonal parks-and-rec recruitments.
The Owensboro City Board of Commissioners approved a set of personnel actions that included new hires, promotional appointments in the police department and regular-status confirmations for employees completing probation.
Approved new hires (probationary, full time, noncivil-service unless noted) included Tiffany Cruz (telecommunicator, effective Feb. 10), Jared Gray (road worker, effective Feb. 17), Mariano McKenzie (labor maintenance helper, grounds, effective Feb. 17) and Timothy Schock (maintenance equipment operator, street department, effective Feb. 17). The commission also approved multiple promotional appointments in the Owensboro Police Department, including Christopher Collins, Lucas Hardy and Anthony Williams to lieutenant (effective Feb. 9) and Caleb Bratcher, Benjamin Fleury, Derek Griffith, Joseph Jones, Joshua Bennett and Preston Smith II to sergeant (effective Feb. 23). Regular-status appointments included Brian Kendall, Kendall Ashbrook and Jordan McCurdy to firefighter and Justin Malay to police officer (effective Feb. 14).
HR Manager Josh Boffreier presented the city’s vacancy report. He said the city’s approved full-time complement is 437 positions for the fiscal year and that head count peaks near 700 in the summer because of seasonal hires. Boffreier said many departments show improvement compared with the same time last year: dispatch and fire vacancies were down substantially, public works vacancies were about half of last year’s level and police still had nine officer openings. He said the most recent telecommunicator recruitment drew 73 applicants, 17 of whom attended pre-employment testing; eight advanced to background checks.
Boffreier outlined plans for additional recruitments and training: a third internal police academy is planned for late summer (August–September) and a fire recruitment will be posted soon. Parks and Recreation seasonal hiring is expected to fill about 60 intermittent summer positions across roughly 14 job types.
Commissioners asked whether the personnel approvals increased the city’s authorized head count; staff said the hires and promotions replace existing positions rather than add to the approved total.
The personnel motions were moved, seconded and carried by voice vote.
