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Sanford HR director warns department is understaffed; requests administrative hire to expand training and records work
Summary
Human resources staff told commissioners the HR office has about three full‑time employees (plus risk management support) for roughly 600 city employees and requested an additional administrative position to support training, policy updates and digitization.
Sharon, the city's human resources director, told the commission the HR office is operating with very limited staffing while citywide workforce management needs have grown.
"We have 600 employees, approximately. In human resources? Yes. We have a total of 3 FTEs," Sharon said during the July 10 work session. She outlined a list of unmet tasks, including rewriting employee policies that date to the 1990s, expanding in‑person and career-path training, supervisory development, succession planning and digitizing personnel files.
Sharon said the department had prepared comparative charts showing typical HR-to-staff ratios in neighboring Seminole County cities and concluded Sanford's ratio is high. She told commissioners an added administrative specialist would free existing staff to do supervisory training and workflow analysis and to move paper records into an electronic system.
Commissioners asked where the new position would be housed; Sharon said staff is developing a plan tied to an upstairs reorganization in a future phase of facilities work. The commission discussed phasing and potential budget sources but did not direct immediate hiring during the workshop.
Sharon described several operational pain points: heavy paper records, insufficient cross‑training within HR, and the department's need to implement standardized policies and more frequent training. She requested an additional administrative hire — an item that appears in staff's proposed budget as a personnel addition and that the commission flagged for further consideration in a follow-up review.
The commission asked staff for a more detailed plan on how the position would be used, where it would be located, and how it would affect HR metrics and service delivery; no formal action was taken at the session.
