Johnston council approves FY26 staffing changes, adds HR director and IT coordinator

The Johnston City Council on Monday approved a package of staffing changes for fiscal 2026 that reclassifies several public-safety positions and adds administrative roles intended to ease an upcoming retirement and expand IT and human-resources capacity.

City staff asked the council to authorize: adding a detective position; reclassifying an investigation-unit sergeant opening to police lieutenant; reclassifying the field operations division commander (lieutenant) to police captain; reclassifying an existing public-safety support specialist to public-safety support manager and creating a new public-safety support specialist; and adding a human-resources director and an enterprise applications/IT coordinator.

Staff said the police-department changes can be accommodated within the FY26 budget by realigning vacancies and that the public-safety support reclassification will change funding splits between the police (80%) and fire (20%) and create a new support specialist funded 80% by fire and 20% by police. City staff said the fire district will need to approve the new position and that Grimes city staff have indicated support.

On administrative staffing, city staff explained the director of internal operations and city clerk intends to retire in about 15 months. To ensure knowledge transfer, staff proposed hiring an HR director and an enterprise-application/IT coordinator now. The presentation compared existing FY26 budgeted amounts and the proposed full-year costs: the budget included $172,950 for the director of internal operations and $132,000 for a city-clerk position; staff said combined full-year cost for the proposed HR director and IT coordinator is $372,400. Including other changes, staff gave a total new-cost figure of $545,350 and an incremental increase of about $240,400; because hires will not all span a full year, staff estimated the near-term FY26 budget impact at about $140,200.

Staff noted the city ended FY25 with about $1.2 million in general-fund surplus and expects Johnston to receive roughly $900,000 to $1.2 million returned from the 9-1-1 fund for the fire district in FY26, and said those resources provide flexibility to fund the restructuring without reducing core services.

The council voted to approve the staffing changes package; staff will proceed with hiring and will seek the fire board's approval where required.

Why this matters: The changes address investigative capacity in police, administrative succession planning and growing IT needs. They carry budget implications and at least one required external approval (fire board) before full implementation.