The Galesburg City Council last week effectively decided to go without an interim Director of Public Works by tabling a one-month extension with the contractor who was in the role.
In the days since that 5-2 vote, several council members have spoken to WGIL about the decision and its long-term implications.
Bradley Hix, Wayne Dennis, Evan Miller, Heather Acerra, and Steve Cheesman voted against the contract at the meeting, citing concerns over having limited information and Interim Public Works Director Mark Rothert’s compensation package.
Ward 5 Council member Heather Acerra says her understanding was that Rothert was only doing administrative work.
Acerra says, “As such, given the experience of our current staff I do not believe this vacancy will have negative short-term consequences. The hiring of a Public Works Director with an engineering degree will be important to ensure that engineering projects continue to move forward.”
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City Manager Gerald Smith says while staff have been managing day-to-day operations without a Director in place, without a Director the city “loses operational oversight, guidance, and critical leadership from a municipal professional well-versed in all of the operational aspects of the entire department.”
Ward 3 Councilmember Evan Miller says he voted against the contract extension partly because the “Director of Public Works needs to be an engineer.”
Miller also believes that the compensation the interim Public Works Director was receiving was too high.
He believes that paying an interim department head the equivalent of $183,000 a year will allow other department heads to demand higher salaries.
Acerra says specifically that she disagrees with the Council’s recent move to elevate the salary range for a Director of Public Works/ Assistant City Manager from 33 EX to 36 EX.
Rothert told WGIL, “As a private contractor, I have to pay for my own health insurance, retirement, and self-employment taxes. My proposed rate is thus reflective of those additional costs, which I tried to explain at the meeting.”
Why the sudden dismissal?
Ward 7 Councilmember Steve Cheesman says there are still a number of questions he needs to be answered about the position.
But Cheesman doesn’t understand why the extension was left until the day before it was to expire, and listed under the consent agenda which is reserved for routine city business.
Mayor Peter Schwartzman was critical of the five council members for not alerting him to their disagreement before the meeting.
Acerra says, “Good communication cuts both ways. Decisions of significant immediate and future financial impact should be discussed rather than slipped into the consent agenda, especially given that this was the first city council meeting for 3 newly elected council members.”
Cheesman says, “For many of us, this was our first meeting and we were not privy to many of the things done before in regard to this situation. My only regret here was not offering a compromise that would have had this position still occupied while we looked in more detail and what was happening with it.”
Miller, Acerra, and Cheesman all say there is no need for an Assistant City Manager, a position Council created in December of 2022.
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City Manager Smith says an Assistant City Manager “will be assigned tasks from time to time to support the City Manager’s office.”
Smith says the current job posting for Public Works Director/Assistant City Manager does require that the applicant have an engineering degree.
But Smith says that the city “risks being priced out of the PWD’s municipal workforce market by requiring an engineering degree based on our compensation scale” and he might ask the Council to remove that requirement.
Smith says that combining the jobs together “could improve our chances of expanding and even diversifying the pool of applicants, and possibly with candidates with engineering degrees.”
There’s another reason why Smith is concerned about Public Works leadership.
He says, “The city is presently engaged in a highly confidential and one of the largest projects it has seen for some time, which would result in a significant game changer for the entire city should the project be approved. Without an interim or permanent PWD, we are caught short-staffed, and our most experienced and single voice for this project is not available to navigate us through this process.”
