Plainfield Hires Firm To Search For New Village Administrator

PLAINFIELD, IL — Plainfield trustees voted unanimously Monday to pay a Northbrook firm $22,000 to hire a new village administrator.

The decision to hire GovHR, made at the village board meeting June 7, follows some turmoil after Plainfield Mayor John Argoudelis announced April 6 he would not renew Brian Murphy's contract as village administrator, citing a need for "a new set of eyes" on how Plainfield does business.

The pay for the incoming administrator has yet to be determined. Murphy, who held the position from 2009, was paid a salary of more than $170,000 after he was approved a new four-year contract in 2017, which expired earlier this year.

A few board members previously fought to bring Murphy back, with trustee Brian Wojowski calling for a special May 20 meeting to discuss his employment.

Related: Plainfield Administrator Search Continues After Special Meeting

In a turn of events, Wojowski said in Monday night's meeting that he fully supports GovHR helming the search.

"In my mind, you are the best firm to go forward with a project like this," he said.

Katy Rush, GovHR's vice president, attended the meeting and took to the podium to go over the recruitment process, which includes interviewing current staff and board members to get a feel for the working environment.

For a village administrator position, Rush said between 40-80 people would be applying. Rush said she'll be the one who will comb through the pool to narrow it down to about 10 candidates to bring before the board.

Rush used to be a village administrator in Woodridge in DuPage County.

"I do appreciate the fact of your background," trustee Cally Larson said. "I think that speaks volumes as well."

Rush said a suitable candidate will be found by the end of September. She said it's more challenging during the summer due to marketing efforts. Labor Day in September and Indigenous People's Day in October are both taken into account as part of the search's timeline.

Fall sports also play a factor, Rush said.

"Many people have a lot of commitments as it relates to sporting events in the fall, so sometimes that becomes a conflict point with the elected officials and with the candidates," she said. "We are trying to find the right times to do a lot of that interview work in particular. I feel very confident we can do that in 14 weeks."

Argoudelis also addressed taxpayers' concerns about the $22,000 being spent to hire the firm and said the numbers even out since a village administrator's salary isn't currently being paid.

"From a taxpayers' standpoint, there's been some discussion out there that, 'Oh, my gosh, it's going to cost us more money unnecessarily,' Argoudelis said. "But after two to three months, we will still be spending less money than we anticipated doing if we were paying two people for this time period."