Chair directs staff to assemble city manager job descriptions; council to review Sept. 10

The chair called the Aug. 29 meeting to order and said the council would discuss the city manager position and related job description work.

The council agreed to have staff member Tyler collect sample job descriptions and circulate proposed drafts by email. "He can send out an RFQ, a request for qualifications to search firms to lead a search, which is not a commitment," a staff member said, describing the RFQ as a way to obtain cost and scope information from vendors. Members emphasized that any job description approval must occur in a public meeting; one council member suggested placing the item on the Sept. 10 agenda.

Why this matters: The council is preparing to recruit a new city manager and members want the qualifications and job description to reflect the council's goals while keeping the candidate pool broad enough to attract qualified applicants.

Members debated how prescriptive the qualifications should be. One council member argued the list should reflect whether the city plans to pursue growth-oriented projects or simply maintain current operations, saying that experience requirements should match the city's direction. Another member warned that highly specific lists could "open the door up to a long list" and reduce the number of viable applicants.

Compensation and market benchmarks came up during the discussion. A participant cited regional salary ranges for comparable communities in the transcript: "around this population block us is about 70 to $85,000." Another member noted a salary study had been done and that pay should align with the market to attract qualified candidates.

Members recommended consulting nearby municipalities for templates and HR processes; Mount Holly and Kings Mountain were mentioned as sources for sample descriptions. The council settled on staff collecting three sample job descriptions for review: "We don't need 5 or 10. We just need 3," one participant said.

There was also discussion about whether the city manager is typically a contract position. A council member referred to a personnel-policy provision discussed in the meeting that a staff member said would be reviewed: a participant said the personnel policy "says no employee for [the city] shall have a contract," and staff agreed to examine whether that language applies to the manager role and report back.

The practical next steps are procedural: staff will circulate draft job descriptions and suggested edits by email, council members will comment, and the council plans to consider final approval at its Sept. 10 meeting.

The meeting then moved on to other business.