Mayor, council examine HR restructuring

The Lorain city administration hopes to save money by restructuring its Human Resources Department.

Meanwhile, the city Building, Housing and Planning Department also hopes to hire a new planning and zoning administrator to assist city staff, developers, businesses and the public with projects in the city.

On Oct. 26, Lorain City Council’s Finance and Claims Committee, with all of Council, discussed the requests to shuffle some jobs in City Hall.

They voted to have the full Council consider the needed legislation.

Human resources restructuring

Earlier this month, the Lorain Civil Service Commission approved creation of positions for a human resources generalist, human resources benefit coordinator and human resources administrative assistant.

Mayor Jack Bradley said he intends to fill two of those posts: human resources generalist and human resources administrative assistant.

Meanwhile, the position of human resources director will be eliminated, along with a secretary to the mayor and safety-service director, because the new jobs will merge tasks from those ones.

The mayor presented at least a half dozen reasons for that plan.

Restructuring the jobs and hiring people will save more than $10,000 from the previous structure, Bradley said.

The Human Resources Department needs at least two people to cover times when one worker is out of the office.

The previous Human Resources Director Lisa Zamiska needed help dealing with the amount of work generated by the city as an employer.

A new human resources leader will assist with contract negotiations for city workers.

But the new human resources workers would be considered unclassified employees, meaning they no longer would have a personal interest in negotiating salary raises that later could affect their own pay, Bradley said.

The department also could investigate allegations of misconduct while maintaining confidential information about workers, he said.

Bradley also touched on emerging ideas for the department, such as an employee assistance program for drug use, a health care committee with city workers and health scans for firefighters, who may be exposed to carcinogens as part of their jobs.

Questions from Council

Councilman- at- Large Mitch Fallis, Ward 6 Councilman Rey Carrion and

Council President Joel Arredondo agreed an organization the size of the city needs more than one human resources worker.

That was a disservice to city employees, Arredondo said.

Carrion called it “mind boggling” that a city the size of Lorain had just one human resources worker.

He and Councilwomanat-Large Mary Springowski, Ward 4 Councilman Greg Argenti and Ward 1 Councilwoman Beth Henley all questioned how the restructuring would work.

Springowski pressed the mayor on future economic effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic, prioritizing city jobs and how the hiring would fit in Lorain’s 2021 budget.

“If things get bad again with the economy, I don’t want to find us in the position that we were in, in 2016, where everybody was having to take furloughs and we were faced with laying off the Fire Department and the Police Department and that,” she said. “I’m very concerned with how this is all going to be impacted.

“I’d like to hear from the auditor on this.”

Fallis noted Bradley said the salaries of the new workers would be $10,000 less than current spending.

“I am very well aware of that; I just feel there are more pressing concerns right now than this with the HR,” Springowski said.

Bradley argued Council should “just do the math. It’s very simple. Just do the math.”

Council predicts doom and gloom for Lorain, he said.

“Guess what? I took care of it,” avoiding layoffs due to COVID-19 and heading toward a year-end budget surplus, Bradley said. “So please, have a little faith in me.”

Zoning administrator

The same night, Council spent more than an hour in the first of several work sessions to review Lorain’s new zoning code.

In the Finance and

Claims Committee meeting, Max Upton, director of building, housing and planning, requested the department hire a new zoning administrator for the city.

The job is needed for the city to continue improving its relationship with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, Upton said.

It also is needed to manage those programs and for the city department’s work in planning and zoning, he said.

Lorain currently has no planning and zoning officer; Chief Building Official Richard Klinar has performed those duties for years, Upton said.

At times, Lorain leaders have failed to recognize a planning and zoning administrator is a position that is not seen, but is “so essential” to the fabric of the city, Carrion said.

Fallis called it a vital position, and Arredondo said if the city adopts a new zoning code, it is imperative to have someone to administer it.