WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — The City of Warner Robins is still trying to fill six leadership positions. Back in November, 13WMAZ told you about a few City Hall positions that needed to be filled.
Those included a Human Resource Director, Building and Inspection Director, Finance Director, City Administrator and Chief of Police.
The City Administrator position has been open for over a year, and the other four have been open for 8 - 9 months.
Last week, they welcomed an additional opening with the retirement of Fire Chief Ross Moulton.
The Police Chief, Director of Building and Inspections, and City Administrator are all currently filled by interim managers. City code says in the case of a vacancy, the Human Resource Director role is taken over by the City Administrator.
"Many of them, we've had different rounds of interviews, but we're not finding the proper candidate," Mayor LaRhonda Patrick said.
She blames the extended vacancies on the city's low salaries and outdated software.
"We still do things on paper. We have paper time sheets. We have to have someone physically enter every piece of information in our HR department, Finance Department the same way," she said.
Now, the city is working to upgrade all of its systems. She says they're looking into cloud-based software.
She says the best candidates come from places that already have the proper resources, so this limits their applicant pool.
Plus, as the 11th largest city in the state, she says salaries across the board are too low.
"We are paying, probably, more than $20,000 less annually than they can make elsewhere," she said about one of their Buildings and Inspection positions.
Councilman Kevin Lashley says stability is essential and wants their picks to be permanent.
"How we're trying to find the current person for that position should show our community that we're legitimately trying to find the best candidate possible," Lashley said.
He says he suspects another reason for the extended vacancies could be due to several lawsuits looming over the city.
"Having some of those things lying out there could possibly put some questions in people's minds, and I think now they're seeing those go by the wayside and being dismissed, that's going to open up the hiring a little bit more for us," he said.
Of all the positions, Mayor Patrick says the most significant need is the financial director.
"We are seeing the deficiencies that are coming. We have a team that has been in place for years, and they work so well together, but they are overwhelmed. With covid, it allowed the city to get behind," Patrick said.
Mayor Patrick says she came into office with a significant financial situation to fix, and she and the council have hired an outside company to help them get it straight.
On top of that, the company is also helping them search for candidates.
However, despite rounds of interviews and outside help, she says they have paused many searches.
"We have not done a big push again for getting candidates for those positions because every result that I received indicated pay was an issue," she said.
Mayor Patrick says they have been waiting to get their 2024 budget together before the search starts again.
"We were able to find well over $4 million in the budget, which is going to help us with doing the raises," she said.
Mayor Patrick says she wants all six prominent positions filled going into 2024. She says the city will be more aggressive about filling these positions as soon as the city's new pay scale is released, which will happen as soon as the council approves it.