Thomas MacMillan Photo
City Clerk Michael Smart wants an “assistant” in an office that already has a “deputy,” which led the civil service board to ask: Who exactly will call the shots in the clerk’s office?
Members of the Civil Service Commission posed that question to Smart (pictured) at a Tuesday afternoon board meeting in the Hall of Records.
The query came after Smart presented a proposed new job description for approval, for a job he wants to recreate: “assistant city/town clerk.”
The commission balked at the request, citing concerns about chain of command in an office that already has a “deputy city clerk,” Sally Brown.
The commission tabled the matter for a month, to give Smart a chance to revise his pitch. In order to fill the position, Smart will also have to win Board of Alders approval to add the position to the city budget.
The commission also tabled another clerk’s office matter: an update to the job description for the position of “election specialist.” The commission also found fault with that item, not for the job description but for the job title.
The election specialist position was created several years ago when the assistant clerk position was eliminated. The move caused some controversy, since the assistant clerk position was part of the Local 3144 managers union and the election specialist position was part of the Local 884 clerical union. Local 3144 complained that Local 884 was taking its work.
The update to the election specialist job description is an opportunity to finally put that matter to rest, Smart told the commission.
The proposed new election specialist description would make it clear that the position does not involve any supervisory duties.
That being the case, maybe the job title isn’t accurate, said commission Chair Daniel Del Prete.“If I’m a ‘specialist,’ I feel like responsibility falls on me.”
Del Prete said people might apply and be hired for the job and then be surprised at how little power they have, become frustrated, and quit.
Smart said he has no problem renaming the post.
Smart then presented the job description for a new assistant clerk, who would be responsible for, among other things, “outreach.” That means “getting out in the community” and letting people know what the clerk’s office does, Smart said. He said he’d prefer to have a Spanish speaker in the job.
He said the deputy clerk would be a supervisor in the office and the assistant clerk would be in charge of day-to-day operations. In other words, the deputy and the assistant would both be in charge in the office, Smart said. “It’s going to really be a shared responsibility.”
Del Prete said the proposed hierarchy in the office seems unclear.
“This is a shared responsibility,” Smart repeated.
Del Prete said his concern is that if the clerk has an assistant and a deputy, “Who really is next” in the chain of command. If it’s muddy, it could lead to confusion and inefficiency, he said.
The assistant clerk job description sounds “eerily similar” to the deputy clerk job description, Del Prete added. Smart has already run into controversy seeking to curtail Brown’s authority and duties in the office. (Read about that here.) His position is part-time; the full-time deputy has traditionally run the office.
Commissioner John Cirello predicted several commissioners would likely vote against the proposed job description. He asked Smart if he’d like the commission to table it so that he could work on it some more.
“I don’t want this to be confrontational,” Smart said. He deferred to the board on the question of tabling.
The commission voted to table it.
Outside the meeting room, Smart said he sees the assistant clerk positions as “parallel with the deputy clerk.”
On the question of chain of command, Smart said that choice should fall to him. “The director is responsible for divvying up responsibilities.” He said he would like to hire an assistant director, train him or her, and then divide office responsibilities based on the strengths of the assistant and the deputy.
The main thing is to have back up, so that the office can function when the deputy isn’t there, Smart said.
“I want to make sure the office can sustain itself,” he said.