Council approves adding two positions to city staff

The city of Whitefish is adding one part-time position and increasing another position to full-time to its staff.

City Council May 1 approved the changes to add a part-time administrative assistance to the fire department and increasing the city’s parking enforcement position to full-time. City Manager Adam Hammatt recommended the changes asking Council to approve the changes effective before the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

“I take adding employees very seriously,” he said. “I wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t a reasonable chance they would be kept on. I don’t like to hire ahead of the budget.”

City Council will begin on May 30 looking at the proposed fiscal year 2018 budget, which it is set to approve in August.

Fire Chief Joe Page, along with the assistance of his wife, has been taking care of all the typical administrative duties for the fire department.

“As the largest department in the city, they are in dire need of some help,” Hammatt said. “We believe a part-time administrative assistant will be able to handle the workload.”

The cost of adding the position for the remainder of the fiscal year is about $2,500 and the annual cost for the position is estimated at $25,200 in the fiscal year 2018 budget.

The city’s parking enforcement position is currently part-time. With the addition of the city’s new downtown parking structure set to open this month, Hammatt proposed taking the position to full-time at an annual cost of $28,000.

“The parking structure has an automated system [for parking leases] and someone needs to respond to that,” he said. “If we move the position to full-time we can vary the hours to provide better coverage for downtown. We believe the revenue [from citations] is going to increase and would cover at least half the salary.”

The city had previously hired a facilities maintenance technician to handle the maintenance of the new City Hall and parking structure, along with parking enforcement for the structure.

However, Hammatt asked to make a change that would remove parking enforcement duties from the maintenance technician position.

“This will free up the facilities maintenance position to not only take care of the new City Hall, but to also take care of maintenance needs at all other city facilities,” he said.