Council hears staff recruitment, retention challenges

During the first day of the Boulder City Council’s annual retreat, department leaders ran through a list of updates their teams are working on, which spanned from rolling out an “equity index” to ongoing work on the core arterial network. While all reports throughout the meeting had varied priorities, one theme stood out from the rest: A need to strengthen recruitment and retention.

“We continue to be hampered in delivering on our mission like water safety, camp counselors and park maintenance,” said Ali Rhodes, Boulder director of parks and recreation. “We’re devoting a lot of resources to address this strategically and in partnership with our friends in human resources.”

On the topic of recruitment of retention, Brad Mueller, Boulder director of planning and development services, said his department has had three failed hiring searches. It is now working to change its model for recruitment as well as its process for reviewing certain policies that would eventually reduce the department’s work and speed up projects.

“One of the things I’m excited about is a door being opened for us that hasn’t been in the past and that’s feedback from all of you about policies that could be changed,” he said. “That would, in fact, make processes more predictable or easier for applicants — whether we’re talking about the bigger projects that are quasi judicial or the more day to day ones that are building permits.”

The City Council decided to wait until today to dig into goals and concerns surrounding