By Kim McDarison
The Whitewater Common Council learned Tuesday that city staff will be moving forward with a proposal to hire an outside consultant to help develop a job description, chain of authority and additional parameters associated with the city’s CDA/economic development director position.
Plans call for a consultant to assist the city for 90 days with the development of a job description for a CDA director, identify to whom the position will report, and outline a search process to be used by the city to fill the position. The work will be performed at a cost of approximately $22,500, City Manager John Weidl told members of the CDA during a meeting held Dec. 15 and the council during its most recent meeting.
Funds earmarked to pay the wages of an economic development director will be used to pay for the consultant, Weidl told both the council and CDA during separate meetings, calling the expense “budget-neutral.”
The proposal, which was initially presented by Weidl to council on Dec. 6, outlined a potential for 180 days of work, and included additional components such as a market strategies report and business recruitment and expansion platform, to be used by the city and CDA.
After discussion on Dec. 6 with council members and a member of the public, who identified himself as a former CDA board member, council asked Weidl to bring the discussion to an upcoming CDA meeting, and then return at a later time to allow council an opportunity to conduct a followup discussion.
Weidl introduced the proposal to members of the CDA during its meeting held Dec. 15.
Within a memo to council introduced on Dec. 6, Weidl noted that he had reviewed historical files, city ordinances and resolutions pertaining to the CDA board’s authority, and a description of the economic development director’s job. He also had spoken with stakeholders and attended CDA meetings.
After completing his research, he wrote that, relative to the position, the oversight and job duties developed to serve both the CDA and the city were “murky at best.”
According to city documentation, the position of CDA/economic development director has been vacant since interim director Nathan Theil left the position in August. A permanent director left the CDA in May.
During the council’s Dec. 6 meeting, Weidl proposed hiring an economic development professional for 90 to 180 days. The consultant’s role would be to offer the city guidance and a framework, which, he wrote, would be established before a search for a new permanent CDA/economic development director would begin.
He estimated a six-month cost for consulting services at approximately $45,000, which, he said, would be paid for using funds that would have been used to compensate an economic development director would the city have had one in place.
Also within his memo, Weidl noted that in order to fund the full six-month scope of the proposal, council approval of an expenditure of $20,000 was required. Citing city policy, he said council’s approval was required to expend more than $25,000.
Would council vote against the $20,000 expenditure, Weidl said he would reduce the cost associated with his proposal by removing expenditures associated with asking the consultant to develop a market strategies report and business recruitment and expansion platform.
An earlier story about the proposal and discussion held Dec. 6 is here: https://fortatkinsononline.com/whitewater-city-looks-to-hire-new-cda-director-job-description-policy-clarifications-discussed/.
CDA board discussion
Continuing the discussion on Dec. 15 with CDA board members, Weidl said that he was appearing before the board as instructed by city council.
Weidl told CDA board members that setting parameters for the CDA director’s job was within his “purview” as city manager, adding: “What I’m suggesting we do is we bring in someone to work with the CDA and the city council to very clearly outline the roles and responsibilities, the reporting structure.”
Weidl said the consultant also would help those involved — himself, the CDA and the city council — develop an interviewing process. He suggested the possibility of using an interviewing panel to find the next director.
“I want the process — as long as I’m here, searching for the CDA director — to follow a prescribed process and I want that position to have a very clear reporting structure. My single largest concern is it seems like we haven’t had that consistently, and it has contributed to some of the, I don’t know, tension? I don’t have a good word for it,” Weidl said.
CDA board member Jim Allen said the processes in place at the CDA “may have evolved over time a little bit.”
Weidl said a goal was to make sure both CDA and council members had an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the CDA and the “scope of what each body is doing.”
Outlining his plan, he said that within the next 90 days, a consultant would guide the city to help it achieve its goals.
Weidl said that he wanted to call the new position CDA director. “Right now, it’s in the wage scale of economic development director,” he said.
“What is clear to me is this position is integral to the success of the CDA,” Weidl added, noting his desire to develop clear reporting authority and processes for day-to-day management.
“What I’m asking for is feedback to the idea that I’d like to bring in a consultant who has been an economic development director, served as a CDA director and now works in the consulting world, has been a director of WEDC (Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation), and on ICMA (International City/County Management Association), (and) very much has the technical skills to help us design a position and reporting structure for success, and also help us create a recruitment and selection process that we can repeat time and again, so as to remove any tensions and confusions,” he said.
Weidl said he had the funds and the funding authority to move forward with his plan. His purpose in attending the meeting was to gain feedback from CDA members, he said.
Responding to Weidl’s request for feedback, CDA president Patrick Singer said: “You indicated that there’s a lot of history — past ups and downs — and I know we’ve already started chipping away at getting that structure, because a lot of it was all up in somebody’s mind, or it was just tradition. So I think you’re spot on in terms of getting an expert in to help us structure this in an appropriate way that, from a policy decision, the council’s comfortable with, the CDA is comfortable with, you are comfortable with as the executive. I think that makes a lot of sense.”
Joining the meeting remotely, CDA board member Joe Kromholz said: “I think just the long and short of it is, yeah, let’s do this.”
Kromholz said he had been a board member for “a few months,” recalling that his first meeting was one where the economic development director was “fired, or whatever, but the bottom line is we need a defined structure however that works, that’s great. Once we get a defined structure, we make it go forward. That’s all there is to it.”
City records indicate that the former permanent CDA/economic development director resigned.
CDA board member Jason Gleason said: “I love the thought of bringing in somebody to help us define what we need versus what everybody is doing. I think that will be very beneficial for us.”
Allen, addressing Weidl, said: “I think it will help you especially so that when we bring somebody new in, both sides know the reporting structure. And that’s where we had some personality conflicts in the past.”
Allen asked Weidl if he had chosen a consultant to perform the work.
Weidl said he was “inclined” toward hiring Madison-based Redevelopment Resources and its economic development professional Kristen Fish-Peterson.
He said he had received two proposals, but Fish-Peterson was a strong consideration based on years of experience, a familiarity with the region — he cited her former experience as the director of Watertown’s CDA — and recommendations coming from a staff member who had worked with her before.
He noted that former CDA board member, Jeff Knight, who spoke at the council’s Dec. 6 meeting, said he also had experience working with Fish-Peterson.
“Certainly her resume and her experience in economic development, both in and on economic development, and specifically with CDAs, that’s the other reason I’m reaching out to her is having served as an executive director and having worked to implement CDAs as they get invented, I think she brings a level of expertise we’re looking for to help guide us through this process,” Weidl said.
Arriving after the initial discussion and participating remotely, CDA board member Jon Kachel asked if the money to pay for a consultant would be coming from CDA or city funds.
Whitewater Finance Director Steve Hatton said the consultant would be paid using funds that had not been paid out as wages while the position is vacant. The funds would come from the city’s Fund 900, he said.
Responding to comments about funding, CDA board member Lisa Dawsey Smith said: “I think that there should be a distinction that, in 2022, the bulk of the salary for the CDA was reliant upon the general fund balance.”
Kachel cited a use of money coming from the city’s tax incremental financing district (TID) balances to supply Fund 900 with funding in the future.
Hatton said Fund 900, which is used to finance the CDA, will be reliant on transfers from the general fund through 2023.
Offering an overview of CDA funding, Hatton said funding for CDA operations has historically come through Fund 900, with those monies coming from the city’s general fund or TID increments.
“So to the extent that there is no TID increment, there’s fund balance and transfers from the general fund as available sources of revenue,” Hatton said. He noted that the city had recently reestablished its TIDs, calling them “next generation TIDs.”
As of the 2023 budget, Hatton said, the revenue generated by the new TIDs, across all TIDs, was about $110,000.
“Portions of that were earmarked for transfer into Fund 900. There are also TID expenses from establishing them — many of them still are in deficit until those establishment costs get recouped. But in terms of payment for the study, that would potentially, or the intent of that as I understand it, was to use the nonpayment of wages, the savings — the budgeted savings — from not having that wage expense, to redeploy those funds to bring in the study and create some disciplines and some input from an outside expert,” Hatton said.
Said Kachel: “The point I wanted to make was we always wanted the CDA director answerable to us and I know the city would always like that answerable to them.” He asked: “What’s the board feel like?”
Kromholz responded, saying: “Well I think that’s the whole point is to go through this process, listen, and then come up with and state positions at the end of that process.”
Said Allen: “As far as who the CDA director reports to, Jon, I think I understand where you’re coming from. In the past, it’s been the goals and objectives, and the vision to be given to the CDA director by the board, but the day-to-day operations are overseen by the city manager. But this report, if we are going to pay for this report, should include that. And you know, we could always change it a little bit if we need to, but let’s see where they go.”
Council discussion, revisited
During Tuesday’s meeting, Weidl returned with an update to council regarding the CDA director proposal.
He said: “I spoke with the CDA, they were unanimously supportive of going forward with bringing in a consultant to … guide us through the process of training for the roles and responsibilities in reporting structure and a selection process for the next CDA director.”
Additionally, Weidl said he had scaled back his original proposal as presented on Dec. 6, noting that a new cost associated with hiring the consultant would be $22,500.
“We are ready to go forward,” Weidl said. “I did as the council asked. I think the proposal is stronger for it, and certainly, now with the unanimous recommendation of the CDA, I’m very comfortable moving in the direction we are headed,” he said.
Whitewater Municipal Building, file photo/Kim McDarison.
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