Council talks department head salaries

By CHRIS PETERSON

Hungry Horse News

As the City of Columbia Falls looks to fill key positions, the subject of how much it should pay has been a topic of discussion.

At last week’s city council meeting, Mayor Don Barnhart suggested they increase the pay range for a new city finance director from $100,000 to $105,000, since the city is all but asking for a certified public accountant to fill the position.

The city needs to fill that position as Shawn Bates, the former finance director, recently took the public works position.

But the problem with offering that salary to the finance director, other councilors noted, was that the city is offering city manager candidates about $125,000. That’s not much more than the finance director and might put off prospective candidates.

Interim city manager Mark Shrives said he would investigate what it would cost the city to hire a firm to search for a city manager. He suggested the cost could be about $35,000, though firms typically guarantee their work. For example, if a candidate doesn’t work out in a year to six months, they’ll do another search for no charge, Shrives noted.

Shrives was the former manager of Polson and said he twice obtained jobs through recruitment firms.

The city is undergoing its third search for a city manager after the first two candidates didn’t pan out.

The city has about $50,000 in its budget as negotiating room for hires. The $90,000-$100,000 mark seems to be the going rate for department heads.

For example, the city recently hired Chad Stephens of Yakima, Washington as the city’s new police chief. All told, there were about seven candidates for the job. Stephens salary, council noted, is about $115,000, which was on par with what outgoing chief Clint Peters was making.

Stephens starts at the end of the month.