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NILES -- City Council plans to adopt a more specific hiring policy for the administration to follow in the future after questions surfaced about how a meter reader was hired earlier this month.
Council President Robert Marino asked Councilman Barry Steffey Jr., D-4th Ward, and Law Director J. Terrence Dull to investigate if a hiring policy Mayor Tom Scarnecchia enacted in August was violated when a meter reader was hired Jan. 3 despite on online post advertising applications for the job would be accepted through Jan. 6.
The report from Steffey and Dull states a review of the process the administration used was "in order."
Still, council is expected to vote on the new policy when it meets Feb. 1. A policy was proposed that requires a five-day public posting of a job opening, prohibits application review and interviews before the public posting is expired, requires three candidates to be interviewed in-person, requires the administration to keep records of the process and report new hires to council.
Scarnecchia and Jim DePasquale, safety service director, said they have no problem adhering to a more detailed hiring policy, but also contend the power to hire lies with the administration and said there was nothing inappropriate about the person hired in the utility department.
The hire didn't violate any of the points of the August policy, DePasquale said. The job was posted to union members for five days and it was posted publicly for a few days -- the policy doesn't specify a a length of time it should be advertised publicly. Also, the applicant was interviewed by the right people and the woman went through drug and background tests, DePasquale said.
There was nothing in the policy that required the administration to refrain from making a hire until after the application deadline closed, DePasquale said.
The woman had experience in the field, didn't need training and was hired at the starting rate of around $12 an hour, DePasquale.
The way she was hired, however, raised concern over transparency, according to Steffey's and Dull's report.
"The difficulty here is that failing to wait until the announced application deadline expired clouds the expressed goal of the administration and council for 'transparency.' The public is confounded by a decision being made before all the applications could be received and reviewed, leaving some to believe that the hiring process was unfair. This places doubt in the minds of many regarding the administration's and council's inability to be 'transparent,'" the report states.