Patrick Callahan of Callahan Municipal Consultants addresses the Tama City Council during their regular meeting on March 7. Callahan presented a staff structure survey that he conducted with and about city staff to help the council decide whether or not to pursue hiring a city administrator. – Photo by Darvin Graham

Patrick Callahan of Callahan Municipal Consultants was before the council on March 7 to deliver a report on a staff structure survey the city commissioned him to do as they decide whether or not to pursue hiring a city administrator.

The analysis, which was commissioned at a cost of $4,750, was conducted throughout the month of February. Callahan met with council members, distributed a questionnaire to city staff and researched 10 additional Iowa cities of similar size to Tama to compare and contrast their staff structures.

The findings of the analysis were compiled in the report that Callahan discussed with the council Monday evening.

The driving factors behind the inquiry into a city administrator position are the lingering absence of a public works director and the potential for increased workload at city hall as the Iowa Premium meatpacking plant expansion has sparked interest in housing and commercial developments within the community.

Callahan worked with Tama previously in 2010 as the city was then pursuing hiring its first public works director. John Lloyd was ultimately hired for the post in 2011 and served in the role until 2019 when he resigned to take another city job in Prairie City.

Since Lloyd’s departure, the city has not hired nor even advertised for a replacement to the public works director. What has existed instead over the past two years is a staff structure without much hierarchy. The city clerk works laterally alongside three public works employees who head up specific departments including water, sewer and streets.

Options

As part of the city staff analysis Callahan presented four potential options the city could consider to address the structure of their staff.

The first would be to return to the structure the city used during Lloyd’s tenure with a full time clerk and a full time public works director coordinating together. The arrangement with Lloyd was somewhat unique in that he came to the city with a background in both public administration and in public works.

The concern with taking this route, according to Callahan, was that hiring public works directors has become more difficult than hiring city administrators. He also pointed out that the city’s choice not to hire a replacement for Lloyd over the past two years may be an indicator that there’s something about the public works director structure the city didn’t care for.

Another option would be to utilize a full time mayor and a part time city clerk.

Only one other city in Iowa that’s relatively close to Tama in population (Evansdale) utilizes this structure, according to Callahan.

Evansdale was able to make the structure work for a number of years as they had a mayor that was interested in the work and was re-elected to multiple terms. However, according to Callahan, once that mayor stepped down the city has cycled through multiple mayors and has at times struggled to find candidates to run.

The same concern would be present for Tama should they pursue a full time mayor as mayoral elections in recent years have not seen a lot of participation.

A third option Callahan discussed was for the city to continue on with the current structure with a city clerk, deputy city clerk and six full time public works employees overseeing various areas within the department.

“I suspect what’s going on is that Alyssa is taking on many of the roles and duties that a city administrator would do in other communities,” Callahan said. “You can keep on doing that, but my concern is you’re gonna burn her out. And at some point, she’s going to say, ‘You know what, life’s too short for this. I’m going to move on.’ And then you’re going to be in a whole lot of hurt if that happens, because I can tell you it’s getting more and more difficult to find people who want to assume these roles of city clerk and city administrator.”

Callahan offered an example of the city of Decorah who recently went through a hiring process to fill their city clerk role. He said the city only saw three applicants for the position despite a starting salary advertised at around $85,000.

The final option presented was for the city of Tama to pursue adding a city administrator to the payroll to complement the work being done within the city clerk’s office.

Typical duties of an administrator could include human resources activities, working with department heads to develop their budgets, public relations, economic development activities, planning and zoning work and management of large or special projects like a major street resurfacing or a building renovation.

Callahan also said he’s worked with cities that have seen a reduction in city attorney fees after hiring a city administrator as that position is sometimes able to draft basic resolutions and ordinances that might otherwise be sent to the city attorney.

By comparison, the city of Tama has expended more in attorney fees than their municipal counterpart in Toledo in recent years. Over the last two fiscal years Tama has spent around $60,000 in attorney fees while Toledo was around $41,000.

Toledo recently added a city administrator title to its workforce as Public Works Superintendent Kendall Jordan took on that title and is transitioning into more managerial duties while continuing on as the city’s Public Works department head.

How is it funded?

The challenge and primary concern of hiring a city administrator in Tama is the cost necessary to add another full time employee to the payroll.

Two points that were brought up as potential sources of funding to add a city administrator were the flexibility now present in the city’s local option sales tax fund with the payoff of the aquatic center bond and the property tax revenue set to arrive from Iowa Premium in 2024 when their initial 10-year tax abatement on the improvements made to the current meatpacking facility expires.

The city is expected to see a revenue increase of around $140,000 per year once the current Iowa Premium tax incentive expires.

Callahan said he believed in the coming years even if the city didn’t add a city administrator position that additional help would be needed in city hall.

“Rarely you’ll ever see a city that says, ‘We have a city administrator, but it was a colossal mistake.’ I just don’t see that,” Callahan said. “I also think it’s great to have somebody who’s got that big picture point of view, that knows what’s going on in all the different departments and can bring it all together.”

Callahan said the likely candidates for a city administrator position with the city of Tama would come from one of four employee profiles.

He said he could see a candidate being someone nearing retirement that’s looking for their last municipal destination, someone local who has managerial experience in the private sector, an in-house candidate or an outside candidate with two years of experience or less.

The next steps should the council wish to pursue hiring a city administrator would be for the group to formally discuss funding options, though no timeline for future action on the topic was discussed Monday.

In other business…

The council approved their annual budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The property tax levy rate is set to remain nearly the same as the previous year, dropping slightly from 19.03 per $1,000 valuation in fiscal year 2022 to 19.001 in fiscal year 2023. The primary changes within the budget for the coming fiscal year are the payoff of the city’s aquatic center bond, an increase within the Public Works department budget for the potential work on the Lincoln Highway Bridget and an a return in the Library department budget back up to around $130,000 compared to $104,920 budgeted last fiscal year.

The council approved the hiring of Brandon Wall as it’s next full time police officer. Wall comes to the city as a non-certified candidate that will need to attend the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy before he is able to work in the field. He and fellow Tama Police Department new hire, Officer Aaron Adams, are both awaiting training from the academy. Wall is 21 years old and is a Marshalltown High School alum currently working for UnityPoint Health as a security professional. His first day on the job is expected to be March 18.

The council approved the city clerk to seek bids from contractors to conduct clean-up work on nuisance properties within the city whose owners fail to comply with nuisance abatement orders. A contractor would be sought to relieve Tama Public Works employees from having to conduct the nuisance clean-up work. According to City Clerk Alyssa Devig, the average nuisance project takes between six to eight hours to complete. The total cost of the most recent nuisance abatement clean-up done by the city was $1,100 considering the hourly wage and benefits being expended for city staff to do the work. Last year there were four such clean-up projects undertaken in Tama.