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Consultant recommends dedicated HR generalist after operational audit
Summary
An HR consultant recommended the city hire a dedicated HR generalist (1.5 HR staff for ~140 employees) to address onboarding, I‑9 compliance and benefits enrollment problems uncovered in an operational audit; consultant also proposed retaining outside consultants for investigations and specialty work.
Holly Gandhi, an HR consultant, briefed the Lovington City Commission on the results of a recent HR operational audit and recommended creating a dedicated HR generalist role to improve consistency, compliance and onboarding.
“...one and a half HR generalist in house,” Gandhi said, citing Society for Human Resource Management benchmarks for a roughly 140‑person workforce. Gandhi told commissioners that current responsibilities are stretched across the city clerk’s duties and that a dedicated generalist would help keep payroll, benefits and I‑9 processes accurate.
She described specific gaps discovered during an audit—missing or incomplete I‑9s and the need for standardized new‑hire checklists—and recommended a layered model: an internal HR generalist handling day‑to‑day operations and an external consultant retained for complex investigations, policy work and specialized tasks.
Gandhi presented market research on salary ranges and said that outsourcing higher‑complexity work while keeping a “boots on the ground” generalist would be cost‑effective and reduce compliance risk. Commissioners asked clarifying questions about benchmarks, scope and the role’s cost; Gandhi said her figures were preliminary and could be refined.
No formal hiring decision was made at the meeting; commissioners thanked Gandhi and asked staff to return with job description, salary range and a recommended recruitment process if they wish to proceed.
