Commissioners approve administrator posting, begin hiring process

Paulding’s Board of Commissioners approved an agenda item for a job description for County Administrator or equivalent and to approve Human Resources to begin the hiring process. Commissioners approved the agenda item last week with a 5-0 vote, culminating a process that was introduced on the agenda in February.
Paulding commissioners had previously approved an agenda item adopting a revised job description for an executive assistant and county clerk, but tabled another item to do the same for a senior administrative assistant for the chairman.
Last week’s agenda item was tabled originally until March when authorization was given to Human Recourses Director Brian Acker to revise the job description and bring back before the board. Last month the board adopted a job description for County Operations Manager and approved Human Resources to begin the hiring process. According to County Attorney Lani Skipper, some modifications were suggested to the job description as composed, which were then agreed upon prior to last week’s vote.
Chairman Carmichael pushed for the item to be completed and commented during the long process that he is not as effective as he could be without the administrative help and has pointed out to post commissioners, who defunded the positions last year, that over 120 other Georgia counties use a county administrator to help with daily operations.
Post Commissioners previously declined to approve a budget amendment in the amount of $75,000 to fund the county administrator and admin assistant positions. The annual cost of these two positions is approximately $215,000. Carmichael also commented earlier this year that funding opportunities for the county will be lost without a higher profile representation from the Commission Chairman in the state and the region.
Post Commissioners said at that time that they wanted to better clarify the duties and job description for a ‘county operations manager’ before they approved the position and voted 5-0 to start the Human Resources department to work on the description, salary range, and job posting for the position. The hiring phase is expected to be ongoing for another several weeks.