With an imminent vacancy at its top-level staff position and multiple vacancies in the Planning Department, the city of Ketchum is experiencing something of a staffing shake up.
Ketchum Planning Director Harold Moniz left City Hall on Oct. 26, and Ketchum City Administrator Ron LeBlanc will leave for Durango, Colo., where he will become city manager, at the beginning of 2008.
Add to that an ongoing vacancy in the Planning Department and the imminent resignation of planner Cathy Hansen, whose last day is Dec. 7, and the city is in a period of major transition.
"The marketplace for planners—it's an employee's market," LeBlanc said. "In the five and a half years I've been here there's always been at least one vacancy in the Planning Department."
And that is despite competitive salaries.
Ketchum budgets between $33,723 and $42,242 for a planning technician (the lowest-level planner the city hires). A senior planner makes between $51,402 and $65,900.
For positions in the Planning Department above senior planner, however, the city is about to mix things up even further. Two new positions are being created: a city planner and a community and economic development director.
LeBlanc said the community and economic development director will be a department head-level position that will command a salary in the neighborhood of $110,000. He said the city is in final negotiations with a candidate regarding that job.
Blaine County planner Stefanie Webster, who previously worked in the Ketchum Planning Department, has accepted the new position of city planner at $72,423 per year.
As for filling LeBlanc's shoes, LeBlanc himself has drafted an outline, which he forwarded to the City Council, regarding possible procedures for searching for his replacement.
He recommended, first, selecting an interim administrator who could begin immediately. It's a method that's been employed by Sun Valley, where Bob VanNort is filling in while the city contracts with a search firm to find a new administrator.
Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall said the city hopes to hire an interim city administrator within weeks to enable that person to work with LeBlanc before he leaves in early January.
The second step LeBlanc recommended was to hire an executive search firm. He supplied the City Council with a list of eight to 10 firms, and Hall said the city would proceed with that recommendation. Once initiated, the process of hiring a city administrator will take about a month, LeBlanc said.
"All of these changes that we're making, we believe from the math that we've done, that this is going to be expense-neutral," Hall said. "Even creating a couple new positions, we're moving some things around in the Planning Department that will create new efficiencies."
Hall, too, acknowledged the difficulties of staffing planning positions, and both he and LeBlanc noted that it's a valley-wide phenomenon. Hailey, Sun Valley and Blaine County have all been advertising for new planners, they noted.
