(Beaver Dam) The Beaver Dam Common Council is set to begin budget talks Monday evening but one item that will not be on the agenda is a restructuring of city government. Mayor Becky Glewen had been discussing a plan to hire a full-time city administrator and reduce the mayor’s position to part-time. Glewen’s plan was sidetracked by the unexpected retirement of Director of Administration John Somers in April. That position was largely tasked with finance matters but many of those responsibilities could be reduced to that of a city clerk/ treasurer with remaining tasks shifted to the new city administrator.
There have been no plans to hire another director of administration and, after Somers resignation, the city scrambled to fill the vacancy, this time hiring a finance director, inheriting all of Somers responsibilities except for personnel matters. Last week, the new finance director abruptly quit.
While there is a lot of crossover with job responsibilities that come with the titles of Director of Administration, Finance Director and City Administrator they are three distinct positions with very different salaries. Mayor Glewen says the restructuring conversation is too complex to make it to this budget cycle but is still a viable plan.
“I still believe that is the direction we should be going,” she says, “with the changes in staffing that we’ve had it just got too difficult to try to fit in this year but will be a, it would be, a goal of mine to work toward in 2021.”
Glewen’s 2020 budget includes a $7000 raise for the next mayor, to $67-thousand dollars. However, the ordinance would allow the salary to be reduced to $20-thousand dollars if the mayor’s role is reduced to part-time during the next term.
Some personnel decisions with financial ramifications were made with the understanding that the move to a city administrator would be discussed as part of the 2020 budget. City Attorney Maryann Schacht took on additional human resources responsibilities from Somers and was given a $3300 monthly raise to $11-thousand dollars per month. At the time, Glewen indicated that Schacht would be retiring in 2020 and the position would be converted to part-time with the savings funneled to the new city administrator. Schacht confirmed to DailyDodge.com that she will not be retiring next year. Glewen notes that Schacht’s historical knowledge will be needed.
The budget is now expected to be published after tonight’s deliberations; the mayor had initially indicated that the document would be published before the council had any input beyond the borrowing plan approved last month.
Glewen discussed restructuring with DailyDodge.com during our conversation with her following Jeff Wiswell’s resignation:
