MOUNT VERNON — Mount Vernon City Council members approved another water and wastewater restructure on Monday. The restructure adds four employees and realigns duties for a fifth.
It adds upward of $383,000 to the city’s payroll and three positions to the OCSEA (Ohio Civil Service Employees Association) bargaining unit. The union supports adding the new positions.
Council members approved restructuring in December 2022 under former Safety-service Director Rick Dzik and former Utilities Director Tom Marshall.
Safety-service Director Tanner Salyers said the restructure was not able to be completed.
“Whatever their aim was, it left us with significant lack of redundancies and some significant liabilities,” Salyers said on Monday.
Redundancy refers to cross-training employees so there is consistent coverage in situations such as illness or emergencies.
Salyers said that following conversations with the administration, Auditor Terry Scott, and current Public Utilities Director Aaron Reinhart, “We found where there were gaps in leadership and workflow. I leaned on the expertise of somebody that I trust (Reinhart) that I think will close that gap.”
Funding the positions
Council members Tammy Woods and Mike Hillier questioned whether the budget supports the restructuring without raising water and sewer rates.
Noting citizens expect clean drinking water and the ability to flush it out, Salyers responded, “Right now, the most sustainable thing for us to do is to cover the redundancy and reduce the liability that’s going on within our water department and wastewater department.
“We’ve been running a skeleton crew,” he said.
He added that Reinhart has over 400 hours of overtime covering the wastewater plant because the city lacks a system to handle the EPA requirements to run both plants.
Salyers said that with rising material, labor, and chemical costs, he cannot say whether the city will raise rates.
Noting the anticipated growth over the next few years, he said the city must have a sustainable system to prevent it from becoming another Flint, Michigan, or Jackson, Mississippi.
Reinhart said the changes will save on overtime and consulting fees. City Engineer Brian Ball said the city has spent millions in consulting fees.
Additionally, Ball said if the city hires outside crews, it pays a prevailing wage higher than the city’s pay scale.
Councilman James Mahan noted that if Reinhart fell ill, the city would have no one qualified to run the wastewater plant.
“That is quantifiable, if we have to bring in someone from outside to run our wastewater plant,” he said.
Salyers said outside management would cost $10,000 to $15,000 a month.
Mayor Matt Starr pointed out that raising capacity fees for new users has increased capacity revenue by over 300%, which will help offset increased personnel costs.
Contentious vote
Council passed the two ordinances authorizing the restructuring by 5-2 votes. Council members Woods and Hillier voted no.
“I’m struggling with the fact that we are literally days away from having a budget discussion for next year. This was brought to us knowing that it would at most get only two readings, and we’ve discussed it for exactly 22 and a half minutes,” Woods said. “This is a lot of money to commit over 22 and a half minutes.”
Hillier agreed, saying, “I don’t know how you can pass something of this magnitude without looking at the whole budget.”
Salyers responded the 2024 budget includes the new positions. Passage now enables him to start the months-long process of filling the positions.
Woods chairs the Employee and Community Relations Committee and gave the ordinance relating to hourly positions a second reading. Councilman John Ruckman then moved to suspend the third reading. He said it makes sense to him, the union backs the change in technician positions, and auditor Scott says the money is there.
“Our utilities director makes this recommendation as well,” Ruckman said. “I don’t see what we gain by waiting another three sessions.”
Responding to Hillier’s questioning the move, Councilwoman Amber Keener said any council member can take legislation through the process. She said it was not sudden, and the previous safety-service director had worked toward having redundancies filled in these departments.
“I think we are at risk of spending a lot of extra taxpayer money by not filling these positions,” she said.
Councilman Mel Severns supported suspending the rules and the ordinance but noted he did not like getting information late. He said he was aware of it because he met with Salyers.
“But I also believe that the amount of overtime we’re getting, and the 400 hours of overtime that Aaron [Reinhart] is getting, that’s not fair to him. … If this is the best group of personnel that we need to run this plant and have this redundancy, we do owe it to the residents to have good water and good wastewater,” he said.
Councilwoman Janis Seavolt agreed with Severns, adding that by delaying, “we’re just going to turn everything back.”
“I think we need to just move on with it,” she said. “… But I don’t like getting something at the last minute, and I don’t want it to continue.”
Ruckman then moved to amend the ordinance and subsequently adopt the amended ordinance. Both motions passed 5-2.
Woods declined to bring the ordinance creating the assistant director positions to the floor. Ruckman moved to suspend the third reading, amend the ordinance, and adopt the ordinance. Council passed all votes by a 5-2 vote.
The amendment changed the salary for the water department’s assistant director from $72,500 to $74,000 and the assistant director of maintenance from $72,500 to $65,000.
What does the restructure entail?
The wastewater treatment plant will move from nine operation and maintenance (O&M) technicians to eight technicians and one new position of chief operator. The change adds approximately $1,226.61 to costs.
Reinhart said the change provides the needed redundancy: The chief operator can back up the assistant director, lab operations, sludge operator, and other O&M technicians.
The water treatment plant has a chief operator and six O&M techs. Restructuring adds an assistant director ($111,566.64) and a lab operations manager ($77,036.57).
Goals and objectives include implementing a backflow program and updating and maintaining emergency response, contingency, source water protection, and asset management plans, among others.
“At this time, those are not being updated as they should be. We just don’t have the staff,” Reinhart said. “Those are things that we would be in violation if the EPA came in. We’d have to hire a consultant to do those, so this would be a money savings.”
Distribution and collection gets a newly created crew chief/meters position at a cost of $92,309.06. Reinhart said this creates redundancy, improves customer service, and provides the ability to follow up on nonresponsive meters and train staff.
In plant maintenance, the restructure adds an assistant director position ($101,159.89).
Goals include developing and implementing preventive maintenance, asset inventories, and work order programs and creating consistency in companies serving both plants.
“A lot of this revolves around redundancy,” Reinhart said of the changes, citing last year’s ice storm as an example.
“We were calling retired employees to come in and help find these meters. We didn’t know where the meters were or the shut-off valves. It created quite an issue.”
