County Manager Randall Reed
addresses Commission.
Currently the City of Alachua has 30 applications for City Manager. Previously, it was agreed that the criteria that was to be used to fill the position was to form a citizen board that would review all applications and present, in their opinion, the most qualified to the commission. At the previous meeting Commissioner Robbins requested that the City look at other options. To that end, Interim City Manager Traci Cain asked the Alachua County Manager, Randall Reed, to come to the meeting and discuss the procedures the County had used to hire him. What follows is a partial transcript and summary of that discussion.
Mr. Reed came armed with an extensive packet of information, which he passed out to the commissioners.
He stated that he was a past president of the Florida City and County Management Association, and that he is currently a member of the International City Managers Association. He said he has worked in "Ohio, Wyoming and three places in Florida."
"I recognize that some of you are new, some of you have been through hirings before. So what I want to do is to just give you information that you can look at in your leisure."
"I have put out just a short memorandum. What I have given you in the packet tonight is a recruitment guideline for selecting a local government manager that is put out by the Internation City and County Management Association. I have also given you a list of executive recruiters by state. Please notice that people in who work in Florida tend to work in Georgia. I have check marked those. Those are 4 reputable firms I have been involved with, and they deal in Florida and Georgia. "
The next item is called the ICMA Florida City and County Management Associations Range Riders. That is a group of retired managers of some prominence. I would point out that the former manager of Daytona Beach and the Chief Administrative Officer of Orlando are some of the individuals covering this area. Likewise Tom Kelly, who was the County Manager of Volusia County is also a Range Rider. They are people who have worked in multiple jurisdictions, and they will provide free assistance to you. If you wish to have someone who has been a professional in a number of places that are now retired and inexpensive, contact these people." Later on he said that they won't take the place of an executive recruiter, but that they do an awful lot for free.
Mr. Reed went on to point out the other items in the packet, and endorsed, if the City could afford it, getting an Executive Recruitment firm to handle the whole process for them. He said that they would ensure a fair examination of the applicants, would be able to find well qualified applicants who may not otherwise apply, and would be able to present only the best qualified applicants to the city, screening out all others who would otherwise fall short.
If the City chooses to go through this without hiring a recruitment firm, he said that the Ranger Riders would be able to help them screen the applicants.
"A couple of things you might want to think about. Right now the majority of the managers, over 65%, have a masters degree. It is commonplace to ask for a masters degree."
"The common degree is an MPA, a masters in public administration."
"Look for experience in a community of similar size."
He warned the commission that this takes a long time to hire someone, typically 3 months.
He told the commissioners they need to designate one person who will do all the talking to the candidates, to avoid confusion.
"You need to determine what you are looking for in a City Manager."
An Executive Recruiter will beat the bushes looking for people who meet your criteria to apply.
"Some people are in the market because they don't have a job right now, other people are in the market because they are interested in a geographical location, and others are in the market only because they choose to be. Typically Executive Recruiters go after people who are already employed and are interested in a geographic area."
"The range of services I have heard as low as several thousand, six thousand and nine thousand dollars."
"If there is an in house applicant, you need to make sure the process is set up to preserve process integrity."
It is common to involve employees, as well as citizens.
"Will you pay for the interview expenses? I tell you, I represent 460 some managers in the state. Half of them won't bother if you won't pay for expenses. It doesn't have to be fancy."
He stressed to get the spouses of the applicants involved. Let them come and look at the community.
He suggested that an event be sponsored so the community can meet the applicants.
Visiting the community is a good idea.
Most managers will want to have an employment agreement. "A severance agreement is an agreed upon amount, in the beginning, in the event that the relationship does not work out for that person, he will be paid upon termination. That is increasingly in the majority; over half the managers in the United States have employment agreements. That could be as simple as a letter or a two or three page document. "
"I want to speak in favor of it as a manager, because if you have ever been through a messy termination it is a lot cleaner when a professional manager can just say 'Ladies and gentlemen, honor my severance agreement and I will just depart.'"
"I have exercised mine in the past, and sometimes you do it just because you believe the relationship is not productive."
He closed by urging the commission to read the guideline he provided before they take action.
"Regardless of who you hire, we hope that he or she is a professional manager. Likewise, we are damaged in this state whenever a manager shows up and does something wrong."
He offered, within reason, help from the County, though he understood, because of the relationship, they might not want to do this. He also offered his personal help.
Mayor Coerper asked how realistic is it for a small community to have a recruiter. Mr. Reed said "They are in a competitive business, they will come in and make an offer to you." He suggested that the City had a lot going on, and it made sense to him to have an outside source help take the load off the City. Further, "If you have an in-house candidate, that makes it even… who's going to manage the process? If you use a recruiter, a lot of that is done offsite. Executive Recruiters will do a very professional job."
He said he has had City's the size of Alachua that have done this before.
Commissioner Robbins spoke, saying she had contacted the Mercer Group and received a quote from them.
Highlights:
5000 dollars they would go through all of the applications, meet the commission, give the applicants a thorough background check.
1000 dollars: they will go through all the applications and pick seven to five of the most qualified, or likewise tell us that all of them are not qualified or creditable.
Commissioner Robbins confided "I am personally very concerned on the integrity of this process."
Mr. Reed endorsed the Mercer Group, saying that was who was involved in his hiring to Alachua County.
Finance Director Anthony Morgan asked Mr. Reed if it was normal to require a financial disclosure for people who apply to be City Manager.
Mr. Reed said that he was asked to turn over all of his financial records. "Managers live in a fish bowl. That is why I don't own anything."
Commissioner Lewis said that he would like to thank Mr. Reed, and that he was certain the commission would work with him in this process.
Commissioner Hills said he needed time to look at this packet of information before they made a decision, an idea echoed by Commissioner Lewis. Mayor Coerper asked that this item be put on the 23rd of May's workshop.
"I would like to see us all look this one over." Mayor Coerper said.
Commissioner Burgess stated that the Commission needs to determine a procedure.
Mayor Coerper reminded everyone that the commission originally going to use a selection committee made up of 10 citizens. "Are we still leaning towards that process? Certainly using an Executive Recruiter is appealing."
Commissioner Lewis said "I think we all turned in names, didn't we?"
Mayor Coerper: "I did. So should we continue that?"
Commissioner Robbins: "Yes we did put in our names." But she went on to say that the two processes don't have to be exclusive. They should do both. "I support the hiring of professionals, a citizen committee, and a staff committee."
Commissioner Lewis asked if the way they did it before was out now, citing that method was what they agreed on in the workshop. "I want to do it like the rest of the commission wants to do it."
Mayor Coerper: "That is the question on the table." He suggested using the Range Riders to work with the citizen group to narrow down the list to two or three candidates. "One thing for sure, like Commissioner Robbins said, a professional firm does a very professional service. They come in and do a very thorough job."
Commissioner Lewis: "Oh, I agree with that. Like I said, I want to do it like the rest of the commission wants to do it. But do we have $10,000 in the budget to do t his with? That is always a question I get asked when we want to do something."
Mayor Coerper responded by saying "I understand that, but I think it is an option we need to explore anyway."
Commissioner Lewis replied "Oh, I do too! I am tickled to death to explore it. We don't have any in house candidates, do we?"
Mayor Coerper: "Yes we do. We have both in-house and in-city candidates."
Commissioner Robbins: "Mr. Mayor, we could actually move forward on this." She stated that the City could send the 30 applications to the Mercer Group, and they would send back the ones that belonged to the most highly qualified candidates.
The Interim City Manager agreed, "I agree with Commissioner Robbins on this. I also think that you need to move forward with it, unless you are going to reopen the position up, I mean you closed this position April 30th. A lot of these candidates could be looking for other positions, or could have filled other positions. You are one month past the deadline already. So you need to start moving forward on this or you are going to have to re-advertise."
Commissioner Lewis: "So can we take action on it tonight? Do as Commissioner Robbins suggested?"
Commissioner Robbins said they could send it to them and get the results back at the end of the week. "There may not be any [qualified applicants] in there, but at least we know where we are right now."
Susan Murray took a turn with the mike. She reminded the Commissioners that all the criteria used last time failed. This time the Commission needs to arrange the contract so that the City doesn't have to pay $60 thousand to get rid of someone who doesn't work out. She also corrected Mr. Lewis, saying that he once again stated that a decision was made at a workshop. "You need to be more careful to say that it was discussed at a workshop. No decisions can be made at a workshop."
Commissioner Lewis: "If I said a decision was made at a workshop, I apologize."
Bob Bieniek endorsed the use of a recruiter, relaying his experience with a similar process in his industry. "I agree with Tamara that we have a professional." He suggested that the City needed more bids and should use extensive citizen involvement.. He closed with "For citizen input, I recommend Jim Shaw."
Robert Perez suggested the commission designate someone "objective, impartial, someone outside the realm of City staff" to handle the applications.
Commissioner Lewis said that he wanted to respond to something that Ms. Murray said. "I think Mr. Reed made it plain up there while ago that you are not going to get a good city manager if you don't have some severance pay in the contract. I don't blame him. I wouldn't work for someone who could just fire you at will."
Mayor Coerper said that he personally liked the idea of taking the applications and contacting the Mercer Group.
Johns Mauldin said the Commission should not make a decision tonight, but should slow down and study the information Mr. Reed presented.
Commissioner Robbins warned that the applications were getting colder all the time.
Wayne Bell suggested from the audience that someone from the City call each applicant and make sure they are still interested. "This is the fastest way to avoid the attrition problem, or to find out if you even got one."
Mayor Coerper agreed that the phone calls were necessary.
Commissioner Lewis said he felt that he couldn't answer this issue until he read the package Mr. Reed handed out. "And I agree with the gentlemen that we make phone calls."
Commissioner Hills agreed.
David Jakupko suggested the City get more bids. "They can fax it off to you like that."
Commissioner Robbins made a motion to have the City Staff call the applicants to see if they were interested, to have the City Manager get more quotes from other companies, and to look at this on Wednesday.
Commissioner Lewis seconded it, and it carried unanimously. | 
