Yachats City Hall will trim back office hours amid staffing issues

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

Yachats City Hall will trim back its public office hours starting in April as the city tries to find two key employees and City Manager Shannon Beaucaire completes an organizational review and staffing proposal.

The City Hall office is currently open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The new hours starting April 1 will be 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with an hour – unspecified at the moment — closure for lunch. The change will not affect the rest of the Yachats Commons.

The change is partly the result of the Feb. 1 departure of Judy Richter to become finance director for the city of Toledo. That left the office with just two employees – Beaucaire and clerk Kimmie Jackson. But city hall staff had already been juggling tasks and schedules to keep the office open and still having to close it for all-employee training or meetings.

While the 2018-19 budget approved last June allocated money to hire a full-time planner/code enforcement officer and additional office help, the positions have not been filled. Beaucaire has said planners for small coastal cities are difficult to find, but that she also wants to finish a citywide staffing plan before hiring people.

Beaucaire brought the office hours proposal to the City Council at the end of its Wednesday meeting, following the council’s approval of outside contracts to handle finances and provide additional planning support. After questions about when and how and why, the council voted 4-1 to approve the changes. Councilor Leslie Vaaler voted no.

Vaaler asked if the decreased office hours would make it harder for residents to meet with contract planner Dave Mattison, who is in the office only on Tuesdays. Beaucaire said that Mattison takes emails and phone calls all days of the week and schedules Tuesday meetings when he is out of the office.

Beaucaire told the council she resisted suggestions that the office keep its current hours but close Fridays to allow staff to work uninterrupted. She also said the city hall staff also needs to do a variety of training with public works employees, whose hours are 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Vaaler said later that she was concerned about closing the office for an hour in the middle of the day and wondered if opening the office later was a consideration.

The council discussed making the change effective in March, but Jim Tooke and James Kerti wanted to be sure the public got plenty of notice.

“We will make it work,” she said of the April 1 change. “But there will have to be times we’re closed because of meetings and training” and for even simple errands like going to the Post Office.

Earlier in the meeting, the council approved a contract with the Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments for the Albany-based organization to provide a finance staffer for a minimum of two days a week with access to a higher-level budget officer one day every other week.

The contract is for $6,500 a month plus mileage and lodging costs. Beaucaire said that is an overall savings compared with the salary, benefits and retirement paid to Richter.

The council also approved a second contract with the group to provide additional services not handled by its one-day-a-week contract planner. But this contract is for no more than $3,000 every three months and only used if the city needs some special work done.

The council of governments, of which Yachats is already a member, provides a variety of services for Lincoln, Benton and Linn counties and 21 mostly small cities.

Mayor John Moore told the council that Yachats is “basically using them as a temp agency” while Beaucaire finishes her staffing review and proposal.

Beaucaire and Moore told YachatsNews.com earlier that the review is nearly finished and once it is done and signed off by the council, the city can look in earnest to fill key jobs.

“The council of governments recognizes that small cities up and down the coast are having trouble filling skilled positions like finance and planning,” Beaucaire said. “These contracts allow us to have access to critical experts.”

The contracts, Beaucaire said, “give us flexibility. Hiring is a huge deal.”