Council Grapples With HR Priorities

Members of Hyattsville's City Council have a bit of homework that they are working on, assigned by Mayor Marc Tartaro during this week's council meeting. Their task: return to the next council meeting on March 5 with ideas for how to best put to work. 

The Hyattsville Charter must be amended to officialy establish the human resources director position within the city government. 

So far, there have emerged two slightly different rhetorical structures used by City Council members to frame the opportunities presented by the hiring of a human resources director.

One approach–call it the hot approach, if you will–presents the hire as an opportunity to quickly take critical examination of municipal staffing, accompanied by statements regarding specific staffing issues which they say need to be addressed.

The other approach–the cold approach–places an emphasis on having the human resources director learn about the existing staffing situation, gradually introducing Vermillion to his new environment as a first priority. As a result, the statements from the cold group are much less delcarative in their assessments of current staffing issues. 

Hot Approach

and frame the issue along the hot approach. they repeated urgent a task which they said would require the deft guidance of an experienced personnel manager. 

"Everything in the city seems to be on hold, waiting until the HR person comes in," said Frazier in an interview. "Unless the HR individual comes in and hits the ground running, they aren't going to be taken care of they way they should be."

Frazier delivered a 10 point list describing the staffing priorities she'd like the new human resources director to tackle. Hiring a city administrator was at the top of her list, followed by updating position descriptions and reorganizing the Department of Public Works. In the middle of that list, Frazier called for a reorganization of the "entire city staff."

said that staffing problems are at a critical level. She highlighted the city administrator position and the director of arts and recreation position as two vacancies which need to be hired as soon as possible. The city administrator position is currently being performed in an acting capacity by The arts and recreation department is currently being performed in an acting capacity by

Perry singled out Chris Giunta, a city staffer who has been working as the acting code enforcement supervisor for 27 months, as a prime example of unfair limbo statuses common among the top ranks of city departments. 

said he wants the to advise the city council on how to best staff the city's departments. Hunt said all decisions about what positions stay, go or get reclassified will be left in the hands of the City Council. 

"There's a lot of turmoil right now, I believe, with our staff and with the city as a whole," said Hunt. "Long term, it's just a matter of him doing his job. I don't really have any priorities, to say dive into this or dive into that. It's just extremely important for council to get its act together to create an organizational structure that works and allow him to do his job."

Cold Approach

Then there's the cold approach, a manner of speaking about the human resources director hire in more gradual terms. It's a rhetorical framework shared by , and Police Chief and Acting City Administrator Holland, who all speak of the hire in a similar manner. 

Hiles wants to be sure that the human resources director has a feel for his new job before making any drastic changes. He called for the human resources director to prepare a kind of staffing audit analyzing human resources issues based on the last three years of various staffing reports. 

Mayor Marc Tartaro also called for a more gradual indoctrination approach. 

"He needs to become familiar with our personnel manual and not start with the notion that he needs to change it," said Tartaro at Tuesday's meeting. "I'm counseling patience."

"Remember, he's highly qualified, but he's never worked in city government," Tartaro reminded the council.

Holland agreed with Tartaro's approach. He said that each department will be scheduling an orientation with the human resources director. He also said there are plans to have the human resources director go on ride-alongs with various members of city departments. 

Framing Staffing

Sandel said she understood the City Council to be reviewing staffing decisions in a budgetary context. She also explained the background against which staffing decisions are being made.

"We've had tremendous change," said Sandel in an interview. "We've had a very successful city administrator retire, we've had turnover in virtually every environment, with the exception of the police department, at the manager level."

"There's been a lot of conversations about how all the pieces fit together," said Sandel, back in early January. "Any organization is going to have a moment where it has to sit down and think about how everything works together."