The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.

La Harpe City Council Mulls Over Hiring A Full Time City Manager/Bookkeeper

by Michael Rodeffer, The Quill

The La Harpe City Council had a lengthy discussion Monday, May 13th, at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall on the subject of hiring a full-time city manager/bookkeeper.

Greg Wisslead threw out the idea of hiring a full-time city manager/bookkeeper so that city hall could have someone available to answer the phone during the day.

At present, no one is at city hall throughout the day. Wisslead said there is no personnel files, contracts for employees, comp time or sick time records available. Wisslead would like to see all files updated.

A handout of job duties and a possible salary of over $38,000 was on the handout.

Brian Covert said he and Police Chief Larry Finch had done the personnel files for the police department.

There were several questions brought up such as:

• Would this position take the place of the treasurer, the clerk and the water biller?
• Does this position need to be 40 hours per week?
• If someone is hired for this position, will there be added costs such as having to give 10 days vacation time, retirement contributions, and extra utilities for keeping an office open?
• If this new hire is doing bookkeeping/bills/some accounting, does that jeopardize the elected treasurer's liability concerns?

With many of these questions to ponder the council decided to table this until the June meeting and discuss this with residents to get a better consensus of what the city people want. Council members are in hopes citizens will come to the June meeting to voice their opinions.

In other action the La Harpe City Council approved:

• April minutes
• Treasurers report and paying of bills
• A motion to authorize the mayor to sign a letter from IMEG for approval of additional RPR personnel as needed.
• Ordinance 2019-2 (adopting an expense reimbursement policy for the City of La Harpe)
• Replacing 4 windows at city hall at a cost of $2120 from Cook's Glass.

The council also approved an added cost of removing the sludge holding tank at a cost of $13,500 by Laverdiere Construction.

The council adjourned at 8:33 p.m.

At this time, City Attorney Chris Scholz swore in the newly elected council members:

Randy Shumaker,

Kelly Harkey,

Jerry Burford,

Treasurer Maggie Link,

Clerk Lucretia McPeak, and Mayor Kat Hasten-Reed.

The council reconvened and Mayor Hasten-Reed appointed Greg Wisslead as Ward 2 Alderman.

The council approved Wisslead and he accepted the appointment.

The council approved the Farmers Market for 2019 at the city park on Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Present were: Council members- Randy Shumaker, Greg Wisslead, Brian Covert, Dave Clover, Jerry Burford, and Kelly Harkey. Also Mayor Kat Hasten-Reed, Treasurer Maggie Link, Clerk Lucretia McPeak, and Attorney Chris Scholz, employees - Police Chief Larry Finch, Daniel Carpenter, David Little, Tim and Monalisa Graves, IMEG Rep. Megan Crook, Dan Gillett and Michael Rodeffer.