The Crookston City Council held a special meeting Thursday night to review the community profile for the advertising of the city administrator position with David Drown Associates (DDA), the firm managing the search.
Liza Donabauer, a management consultant for DDA, went through the timeline for hiring a city administrator with the council. They will start advertising on Monday. The council will return on April 27, where they will select their finalists for the position. “That’s after a month of posting for that advertisement from March 16 – April 12. We’ll screen those applicants, and when they come together on April 27 for that council meeting, they’ll select approximately four to six candidates they want to meet in a personal interview. Those interviews are slated for May 18-19,” said Donabauer. “Now assuming that city administrator that’s selected as the winning city administrator, if you will. They will already be in a position, and they have to provide a 30-day notice to the organization they are working with, so we have a worst-case scenario of the new candidate starting at the end of June.”
DDA will choose the semifinalists and the council will select the finalists on April 27. “One week before the meeting on April 27, I’ll send an email to each of the City Council members,” said Donabauer. “Attached to each is the semifinalist’s resumes, cover letter, video interview responses, as well as work personality index. Those video interview responses will be about five questions, or so, they get 60 seconds to respond too. They only get a minute to think about their answer, so it causes them to think on their feet, show their personality, and engage the council.”
The council spent several minutes discussing the salary range for the position, and Donabauer provided the council with salary range data showing a starting salary between $90,000 and $124,000 in similar Minnesota communities which is an increase over the last city administrator salary that started at $85,000 and ended around $94,000. Several council members expressed the desire to ensure they set a salary that would net qualified and experienced candidates.
Mayor Dale Stainbrook expressed concern over whether the salary range data was high enough to draw a qualified, experienced candidate. Donabauer said she believed the range was sufficient before the council set the final salary range for $94,000-124,000. Stainbrook said he still had some concern that might be too low but thought the city could find the right candidate. “I’m a little nervous that maybe it’s slightly too low,” said Stainbrook. “I think we’ll still find a good candidate if we offer a decent package deal as maybe moving expenses or more vacation time. That’s something that has to be worked out when we get down to the person we want sitting in the chair.”
For the community profile, the council made three minor changes to what was presented. One was to change the number of skilled nursing facilities, which was listed separately from RiverView’s Care Center with skilled nursing specializing in memory care, from two to one as it was noted that RiverView no longer operates a nursing home, as was noted by Stainbrook. The second was to adjust the organization chart to have the council and mayor appear on the same level to fit the charter’s strong council, weak mayor description, rather than the mayor above the council. And finally, it was noted the document stated the city managed a nine-hole golf course. Stainbrook asked for that to be changed to a privately owned nine-hole golf course while adding the city operates two nine-hole disc golf courses in Central and Castle Parks. “I think Liza did an excellent job,” said Stainbrook. “Even on the description of the job, she cleaned it up to make it look for appeasing to whoever is looking to apply to be the city administrator possibly. The profile went well with just a couple of corrections, so I’m happy with what we’re putting out there.”
The Council also asked Chamber Director Terri Heggie if she’d be able to organize a tour of the city and a community meet and greet with the candidates during final interviews, which were tentatively scheduled for May 18-19. The City Council will meet again on Saturday at 7:00 a.m. in the North Shore Room at the Crookston Inn for its annual strategic planning session.
Crookston DRAFT Community Profile.SG.1
