Council to have more say in hiring, firing staff

The hiring, firing or creating of department heads or positions at the City of Niagara Falls will now be the final decision of council.

Politicians unanimously approved a motion brought forward by Coun. Vince Kerrio that the municipality go back to the prior policy at city hall.

“We used to have a situation where all of the senior directors, if they were hired or fired or we were replacing them or creating a new position, it would have to come to council for approval,” he said during Tuesday night’s meeting.

“Somehow, I don’t know what happened to that, but that went away. I’d like to see us go back to that, where the senior directors, any of the senior directors that are hired, fired, whatever, has to be approved by council prior to anything being done with their position.”

Kerrio said the city used to have a governance committee, which was in place when the municipality hired its current chief administrative officer, Ken Todd.

Kerrio said he would like to see the governance committee put back together, and “when we get to the position where we’re going to replace a person, or hire a new person, or someone’s leaving us for whatever reason, it would maybe go through the governance committee, or not, but council would have the final say on hiring or dismissing of one of the senior staff.”

Coun. Wayne Thomson, who seconded Kerrio’s motion, said years ago a department head would go to council for final approval, but “all the work would be done in-house by the CAO or HR.”

“I don’t have a problem with that, that’s the way it used to be.”

Although he didn’t get into specifics, Kerrio said the issue “came to light some time back” when the CAO approached council about a situation involving the clerk.

“The CAO had to come to us, or had asked us about something — there was something that the CAO had to do to get our permission to deal with a position,” he said.