UPDATE: I contacted a current city councilor about this and they said they were unsure what was going on. A former city official told me this title change is NOT going towards the new budget analyst but the CURRENT council chief of Staff, Jim David. But what is confusing is that Mr. David would also be the direct supervisor of the clerk staff which is odd since the city clerk is really the defacto COS of council because of charter language. So why is Mr. David getting the new position and NOT the city clerk? That answer I cannot give you.
Most organizations would have changed the title before advertising the position, but that is NOT how the city council does things. Half-Backwards. The Budget Analyst/legislative advisor was retiring so the city council was tasked with replacing that person (a position that I thought the city really didn’t need because I was unaware of any policy he helped work on or crafted over the years). We also PAY the municipal league to lobby the legislature on our behalf, so having an internal legislative person seems like duplicity.
So I guess the city council just waited for this person to retire before admitting that the position was obsolete;
So why didn’t they just advertise the position that way? Oh, that’s right, because if you look under the pay grade, you will see they get quite the bump. Not bad, getting a raise a week after you are hired, she must be an over achiever. I wonder if the pay bump will be discussed in the meeting. Doubtful.
While I agree the council staff should have some kind of a supervisor, they already do, the city clerk. So why isn’t he the supervisor for the city council staff? I don’t think the council staff needs a direct supervisor but someone who they can go to with day to day HR stuff but the council chairs really should be the direct supervisors.
It’s funny how the new council is taking on all this new staff and I don’t think it was their idea, I think that the council chairs, Soehl and Merkouris have been cooking up these staff additions for awhile so that when stuff goes south on the council they can blame staff, oldest political trick in the book.
So the new person with no certification or local government experience is now to be in charge of all the city council staff? Including being responsible for the actions of the city clerk? Is the council shirking all their duties to non charter positions? Next thing you know they will be giving the mayor all the duties of the council. My bad, they already have, so its not a stretch. Never mind.
I would assume, the order of power would remain the same as before, theyare simply creating a staff position beneath the “Charter Elected Governing Board”, so it would appear as such:
1) Governing Board of the City of Sioux Falls (Mayor, 3 At Large Reps, 5 District Reps)
2) The Governing Board Appoints a City Clerk (by charter) to Govern Over Town Hall Office – City Clerk is by law, the Official Record Holder, Keeper of our Charter, Ordinances, Executive Orders, Proclamations, Elections, etc. He is Assisted by his two Clerks who manage the day today Town Hall Office.
3) STAFF MEMBERS – Administrative Officer (Jim David) would administrate all “Employees of the Governing Board” – Budget Anaylist, Legal Anaylist, Secretary, etc…these persons simply do the day to day work of the Governing Board related to forming policies, budgets, and research. They pretty much do the same work as the “Legislature Research Council” does for the State Legislature…
***Scott, remember a few months ago, I recommended to the City Council that it may time that we as a City created a “City Council Legislative Research Council”. Rich Merkouris had told me he was working on this Administrative Assistant Position to be sort of that position, I think Rich kind of took some of my advice, and changed this position recently to kind of do parts of, if not all of what I was getting at….
Jim David if he is to be the “Administrative Officer” of the Governing Board, he is in fact going to oversee these Fulltime Staff Employees to manage the day to day legislative research, budget reports, legal, and administrative duties, basically a “RESEARCH COUNCIL”
I think that is what is being created. Â