Miami County commissioner outlines multi-stage county administrator hiring to Riley commissioners

George Bretz, introduced to the Riley County Commission as a Miami County commissioner, told the board his county’s recent search for a county administrator relied on broad advertising, recorded virtual interviews and multiple executive sessions to protect candidate identities. "We had about 60 applicants…we did at least 12 virtual interviews," Bretz said, describing how the screening committee cut the pool to a small set of personal interviews.

Bretz emphasized keeping candidate identities confidential during executive sessions and involving the full commission in final deliberations: "We called them candidate A and B…we never identified the person we were interviewing." He said Miami County invited two commissioners-elect to observe interviews (without a vote) and aimed to have a new administrator onboard in mid-December ahead of the current administrator’s Jan. 8 retirement.

Resident Gary Olds raised budgetary questions and cited published pay ranges for the position; he read figures showing a high-end scale of roughly "$160,000 to $240,000." Elizabeth Ward, Riley County’s human resources director, told the commission the top-of-scale figures in publicity materials are accurate as the published maximum but said the county expects to hire within the "first 3 to 5 steps" of that range rather than at the top end. "We will expect to hire this person in the…first 3 to 5 steps or experience levels of that range," Ward said.

Why it matters: Commissioners said they want to protect applicants’ privacy while ensuring a transparent, professional process, and staff will return with explicit hiring-and-compensation details during the marketing and final-hire decisions. The commission did not take formal hiring action at the meeting.