Tama City Council members Emily Babinat, Anne Michael, Mayor Doug Ray, Larry Thomas and Aaron Haughey discuss the merits and challenges of adding a city administrator to the staff at city hall. The city has never employed a city administrator and so the council will be holding a community forum at 5 p.m. on March 31 at the Tama Civic Center to discuss the matter. – Photo by Darvin Graham

Following an assessment commissioned by the Tama City Council in January to look at the city’s potential need for a city administrator position, the public will soon have an opportunity to hear directly from the council and to voice their opinion on the matter.

During the March 21 regular council meeting, the council moved to set a city hall forum at 5 p.m. on March 31 at the Tama Civic Center for the council to discuss why they are seeking to hire a city administrator and to receive feedback from the community.

Earlier this month the council heard from consultant Patrick Callahan who conducted the city staff assessment.

In his assessment, Callahan recommended the council pursue the city administrator hiring as the solution to a void that was left when former Public Works Director John Lloyd resigned from the city in late 2019. A replacement for Lloyd was never hired and since that time the hierarchy within the public works department in Tama has been split between the various superintendents who work in the water, sewer and streets areas within the department.

“The public works, city clerk dual roll option was tried by the City from 2011 to 2019 and was reasonably successful,” Callahan’s report stated. “If the City of Tama had a smaller population or fewer capital projects, then this option might still be the best alternative. However, it would be extremely difficult to recruit and hire a person with all the state required water and wastewater licenses as the previous public works director.”

Potential capital projects referenced in the report include renovation of the library building, demolition of more than two dozen dilapidated houses, a water main and sewer line replacements, repairs to the water plant, renovation of the wastewater plant and conducting a city annexation study.

Another motivating factor the council discussed was the need for human resources assistance with retirements coming from several city staff in the coming years and the hiring processes that would have to be taken on to find their replacements.

Council member Emily Babinat commented on the most recent hiring process she participated in that brought in a new public works employee to be trained to work at the water plant.

“With this round of hiring for the water plant I would have preferred an HR person, someone who has more of a background and can handle the interviews and all the applications and even update our applications,” Babinat said. “Because the applications that we have right now are for the police department. We also need someone to help handle internal conflicts with staff, because I don’t think we have a good system for that.”

The cost to hire a full-time city administrator appears to vary widely depending on the city and the circumstances surrounding the hire.

The News Chronicle polled 15 Iowa cities that are relatively close in population to the city of Tama (3,130). Of the 15 cities, six of them including Onawa, Robins, Shell Rock, Sigourney, La Porte City and Brooklyn do not employ a city administrator.

The remaining eight cities who do employ a city administrator appear split between two salary tiers. Salaries for city administrators in the cities of Milford, Monticello, Garner, Waukon and Rock Valley all range between $89,000 and $97,000. However, salaries for city administrators for cities such as Eldora, Belle Plaine and Toledo range between $62,000 and $71,000.

Last year the city of Toledo added a city administrator position to their city code and adjusted the job title of Public Works Superintendent Kendall Jordan to also be a city administrator. Jordan’s salary remained the same at $70,000 and there was not an additional staff member hired following the title change.

During the meeting some potential options for funding the administrator position came up including using the city’s local option sales tax fund that recently saw the payoff of the city’s bond for the Tama-Toledo aquatic center construction. Another potential avenue may be the increase in property tax revenue coming from Iowa Premium once the 10-year tax incentive the city issued in 2014 falls off in the coming years.

Within Callahan’s report he provided a suggested list of tasks for the city to complete prior to advertising the position. The first step on the list is to hold a public meeting to help convey why the city is looking to add the position.

“I would like to have the public’s opinion on this before we move forward,” council member Brian Hanus said. “But I don’t want to kick this can down the road. I’m thinking within a month we need to be making a decision.”

Suggested work would then include researching and drafting a city ordinance for an administrator position, determining a job description, setting a salary range and benefit package, conducting a goal-setting session with the city council and preparing the budget for modification once the administrator is on board.