LR posts part-time slots for two aides
Budget OK near as positions open
Two new job postings went out last month for parttime positions in Little Rock’s office of executive administration that are expected to pay up to $28 an hour.
The call for applicants came as board members are preparing to approve the 2022 municipal budget.
Little Rock is seeking to hire a constituent relations liaison as well as an executive operations coordinator, according to the job descriptions posted online.
The constituent relations liaison “will work to advance the Mayor’s Office priorities by supporting its efforts to establish and maintain positive and productive community relations,” according to the stated job objective.
Essential functions will be to serve as the first line of communication for constituents reaching out by phone, email, mail and walk-in visits, and then to process inquiries and track progress on resolving their concerns, the job posting says.
The executive operations coordinator will be tasked with answering phone calls and routing inquiries as well as scheduling and maintaining the calendar for the office of executive administration.
Among other duties, the individual hired will make travel arrangements and prepare itineraries for executive staff or others, assist with the mayor’s youth council and other mayoral groups in the absence of other staff and operate a city pool automobile while performing essential job functions, the job bulletin says.
According to the bulletins on governmentjobs.com, both are non-union positions, listed as having hourly pay ranges of $20-$28. They also are listed as eligible for overtime compensation.
The individuals hired for both jobs will presumably report to Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. or one of his senior staff members. However, Scott’s chief spokeswoman Stephanie Jackson did not reply when asked for confirmation on whether the employees will report to the mayor, City Manager Bruce Moore or someone else.
“These positions will streamline workflow and create greater efficiency within the OEA [office of executive administration], and they are a part of the ‘22 budget,” Jackson wrote in an email. “To this point, the work that will be performed by these positions has been performed by various individuals including temporary interns, part-time and full-time staff.”
Finance Director Sara Lenehan told city board members during a Nov. 9 presentation on the proposed 2022 budget that full-time staff in the office of executive administration would increase by two, for a total of 30, because of racial and cultural diversity positions that were being transferred from the Department of Community Programs. Those roles will now fall within an office of diversity, equity and inclusion.
A slide shown to city board members noted that the number of full-time staff in the office of executive administration was 28 at the time the 2020 budget was adopted.
The proposed 2022 budget includes a grand total of 2,216 full-time positions across all city funds for a net increase of 25 positions, board members were told during the presentation last month.
At a meeting last week, when asked by Vice Mayor Lance Hines of Ward 5 about how the city budgets for parttime employees, Lenehan said the city does not budget by specific part-time employees and instead budgets a lump sum by department, based on the average amount they are using.
She said that “there is a lot of turnover in those positions. People work a different number of hours; some of them are seasonal.”
Lenehan added that the department director is supposed to work within the lump-sum budget. At the meeting earlier in November, Lenehan’s 2022 budget presentation listed over $172 million in proposed personnel spending within the general fund, up from $165 million in the original budget adopted for 2021.
Hines last week asked for the part-time costs to be broken out by department, and referenced recent part-time job postings at the $20-$28 range.
Additionally, at-large City Director Joan Adcock at the same meeting asked Lenehan for additional information on the number of interns in each department and whether the city pays interns. In response, Lenehan indicated some interns are unpaid and others are sometimes paid over the summer for a few months.
An ordinance setting the budget for next year must be approved before the end of the month, and the budget ordinance currently before the board is scheduled to be read for the first time at a meeting this evening.
Since his inauguration in 2019, Scott has sought to craft a more active role as mayor under the city’s hybrid form of government, which features a full-time mayor who presides over meetings of the elected city board as well as a city manager who serves as the top administrator and is responsible for day-to-day city operations.
Early in his first term, Scott announced he would absorb the responsibility for overseeing six city department heads — including police, fire, public works and finance — from the city manager.