Filling the Ann Arbor City Admin Job
The April 19, 2011 Ann Arbor city council meeting agenda – moved to Tuesday to accommodate Passover – will include an item appointing an interim city administrator. The same item will authorize a job description for the city’s soon-to-be open position.
The job opening will be be created by outgoing city administrator Roger Fraser, who announced his resignation publicly at the end of a Feb. 28 city council work session on the city’s budget. In early May, Fraser will be taking a job as a deputy treasurer for the state of Michigan.
The recommendation to be considered by the council at its April 19 meeting will come from a search committee, which was appointed at the council’s March 21 meeting. The committee was tasked with recommending an interim administrator and with presenting a plan for a selection process to hire a permanent administrator. The plan is to provide for internal as well as external candidates for the permanent job.
The interim job was open just to internal candidates, with the stipulation that the interim administrator would not be considered for the permanent job. Although the wording of the April 19 council resolution is not yet final, the process for making the permanent hire is expected to begin with a job posting immediately following the council’s April 19 meeting. The committee’s recommendation on base salary will be to target recruitment in the $145,000-$150,000 range.
At the March 21 council meeting, mayor John Hieftje indicated that he would like to see the hiring process completed by late summer, or mid-summer if possible. To meet that goal, an ideal timeline would leave the posting open for 30 days, with basic vetting of candidates completed during that time. Also during that period, starting in early May, the search committee will be recommending that a consultant – Scott Reilly with Affion Public – make a site visit to Ann Arbor for a day and a half of meetings with various constituencies, to gather input on the “intangible” aspects of job qualifications that are expected of the successful candidate.
The ideal timeline would use May and June to winnow the field of candidates and to interview finalists. The city’s human resources department would collaborate with Affion throughout the process. An offer would made at the beginning of July, and the new permanent city administrator would start at the beginning of August.
At meetings held on Wednesday and Friday morning – April 13 and 15 – the search committee discussed goals for the interim administrator, salary range for the permanent job, the public process, and how the city’s human resources department will work with an outside consultant. [Full Story]