Nevada council says no to using a consultant to conduct search for new city treasurer

Nevada Daily Mail

During a meeting Tuesday night, the Nevada City Council voted 3-2 against hiring the Robert J. Saunders Organization to recruit a city treasurer.

The city has contracted with the Liberty-based search firm to find a city manager. Work sessions identifying what sort of background and experience the council would like a new city manager to bring to Nevada have already been conducted. That search is slated to cost the city about $11,600 for the Robert J. Saunders Organization to conduct a search for a city manager, with the city being directly billed for advertising expenses in addition to that fee.

When former finance director Ron Chandler retired in June, council members brought up the idea of using the search firm to find a city treasurer as well. At that time, the Daily Mail reported that Meyers said that he polled the council members and that they generally agreed with hiring the firm to find a treasurer, although there were some concerns about the cost of their services.

In July, auditors found huge discrepancies in the budget due to accounting errors, which led to a drastic reorganization of the city's personnel structure and the elimination of 30 jobs -- about 10 of these were positions that were already vacant -- a move city leaders say was necessary to alleviate the budget crisis.

"I'm opposed because it's going to cost the city about $11,000 for something we can do ourselves. In view of our financial situation, it will be money well spent," councilman Bill Edmonds said.

Despite the fact that the city council has never authorized Saunders to do any work, Annette Crews told the council that he had sent a bill to the city for some advertising.

"We didn't authorize it. We did not authorize anything for the city treasurer," Edmonds said.

"The last time I looked at the budget, it looked like we would end the year with $10,000. We need to do everything we can to keep the expenses to a minimum," councilman Russ Kemm said.

"If we do not get the response we would like we can always hire Saunders later," he added.

Dick Meyers said that if the council advertised for a treasurer themselves the ads would likely be in the same publications that Saunders would use. In that case, the city may not be able to use Saunders' services if the city fails to find a suitable candidate for city treasurer on its own, Meyers said.

"I view the treasurer as important as the city manager," Meyers said.

Bill Edmonds, Russ Kemm and Jim Rayburn voted against the measure. Dick Meyers and Bill Gillette voted to hire Saunders.