Council debate over legislative liaison and ethics director funding exposes staffing and charter frictions

A months-long staffing disagreement came to a head at the May 9 Budget & Appropriations Committee meeting when leadership proposed moving the council's legislative liaison position out of the City Clerk's office and into the Legislative Services office.

Several council members and the City Clerk opposed the transfer, saying the clerk's office had already lost positions in earlier reorganizations and needed the staff to continue document processing and statutory recordkeeping. They argued the transfer was not discussed with affected department heads or the employee and urged the committee instead to fund an additional hire for legislative services while leaving the clerk's staffing intact.

Supporters of the move said the liaison's daily duties had become largely legislative and that placing the position in the Legislative Services office would better align duties with supervision. Chairs proposed a compromise: keep the current staff member in the clerk's office for now and add a funded liaison slot in Legislative Services (the committee approved intent language and secured the funding line in the amended budget).

Separately, the meeting included extensive debate about the newly chartered Office of Municipal Ethics. The city charter requires a full-time director by July 1, 2026; ethics commissioners who wrote to the committee said prompt funding was essential so the commission could hire an executive director once the commission is reconstituted. Staff and the civil-service director warned that a too-low salary would make it difficult to recruit a qualified candidate; personnel comparators presented a competitive range above $100,000 while the budget staff initially proposed a lower entry figure near $86,000. Committee members approved a range/instruction that raises the director's budgetary grade (committee intent language reflects a higher unaffiliated-range target to attract qualified applicants), and asked staff to finalize the ordinance-level unaffiliated table for the council.

What this means: The committee's actions left the City Clerk's office with its current liaison staffing while creating a funded position for Legislative Services; the question of titles and precise pay will be resolved administratively through the civil-service and unaffiliated-pay processes and the final ordinance. The ethics director position was left with committee intent indicating a higher salary range in order to be competitive; recruitment will follow the civil-service process and the ethics commission's selection role once the commission is formally seated.

Attributions: Debate and letters from current ethics commissioners were entered into the meeting record; positions quoted and paraphrased here derive from the committee transcript and the civil-service and budget staff presentations.