The Town of Athabasca’s council voted to find a new permanent chief administrative officer and give its interim one a five-per-cent raise, after questioning whether they all should step down and let a new council take the helm.
At the Sept. 6 meeting, town council had a discussion about whether they should hire a permanent CAO or another interim CAO to hold the office until the next election – or simply resign and allow a new council to fill the position.
After an in-camera session, council voted in favour of Mayor Roger Morrill’s motion to hire an employment consultant to help the town select a permanent CAO. Coun. Tanu Evans opposed, and Coun. Nichole Adams was absent from the meeting.
Council also voted to give its current interim CAO Warren Zyla a five-per-cent raise for taking on the duties in addition to his job as parks foreman. The raise would be retroactive to when he first took the position on Aug. 15. The motion passed, opposed only by Coun. Tim Verhaeghe.
Zyla will keep the five-per-cent raise as long as he holds CAO title.
Council came to five per cent following Policy 300-003, the Assumption of Supervisory Position policy. This policy states that the person assuming a supervisory position will be compensated five per cent per hour in addition to their regular wage.
However, the decision came after a vote to increase Zyla’s salary by 15 per cent was defeated in a tie, with Councillors Joanne Peckham, Shelly Gurba and Evans in favour, and Verhaeghe, Coun. Steve Schafer and Morrill opposed.
Evans also made a motion to direct administration to bring back policy 300-003 for council review, “and to maybe add a provision in there for staff members who take on the CAO role.”
Morrill said there was urgency to get a new CAO.
“You (Zyla) are the representative that was chosen by this council,” he said. “If we are to steady the course, it is my belief that we need to have a consultant come in immediately to help you out.”
In response, Zyla said, “I took this on just because I wasn’t seeing forward movement and at this point, it’s a tough spot, but there’s short term stability.”
Gurba had also suggested the town look for another interim CAO. She said she found a company that would charge $25,000 to head hunt for them.
“Which I think, at this point, might be a little bit of a jump,” she said. “My suggestion and my motion is to basically put ads into the municipal sites and see if we have anyone that would do an interim position until maybe December of next year.”
Evans said he believed council’s reputation would reflect in the quality of applications they would get.
“I think this council has lost the right in the public eye to hire a new CAO,” he said. “I believe it should be the next council who determines who they want to spend the next four years with.”
This led the mayor to question whether council has the right to sit around the table.
“I say if council really believes that it is not the right of this council to hire a new, permanent CAO, then I would question what right we have to sit here, around this table, and maybe that it’s time that we looked at ourselves,” Morrill said. “Is it time that we do something ourselves? Is it time that all of us consider stepping down? If this is really our true belief, why would we hold this community in ransom for 14 or 16 more months?”
Verhaeghe added that if it were to come to council stepping down, it would likely need to be a unanimous vote.
Schafer said he would “tend to support” a motion to step down.
“I would tend to support the motion, if at this time this council is to vote on a motion to step down – that we establish a track that can be forward-looking from this point forward,” he said, noting that in that way, they could expedite the hiring of a permanent CAO.
