The Jefferson City Council is expected to decide Monday whether to merge two departments and fill the last high-level vacancy at City Hall.
On Friday, officials announced a special council meeting to take place at 5:30 p.m. Monday, immediately before the meeting of the budget committee. City Administrator Steve Crowell is expected to recommend the council appoint Bill Betts, current information technology services director and interim finance director, as the director of finance and information technology, effectively merging the two departments he oversees.
Betts has served as interim finance director since February 2013 and has been the IT director for eight years.
In a memo from Crowell released Friday, he states that Betts "has shown he can effectively direct the financial requirements of the position."
"I think Mr. Betts, supplemented by his knowledge of the city and organization, brings a high degree of leadership and managerial ability to the director of finance and information technology position," Crowell wrote. "Mr. Betts will also undoubtedly work to enhance his background by attending appropriate finance-related educational opportunities."
The proposal includes a 5 percent salary increase for Betts, whose pay would go from $105,540 to $110,817.
Betts said he's comfortable with the proposal and has had several conversations with Crowell throughout the past couple of months about the new position. After nearly two years of doing the job on an interim basis, Betts said he's got a good base of knowledge for moving forward.
"I have a pretty good idea," Betts said.
But what really makes this proposal possible, he said, is the staff of both departments.
"We have a good staff on both sides ... in my mind, that's what makes it possible," Betts said. "That helps out to make my job easier."
The plan for Betts' new position is not unlike a previous one from former City Administrator Nathan Nickolaus. In January 2013, city officials announced the promotion of Betts to assistant city administrator, a position that did not exist and sought to merge the oversight of both the finance and information technology departments.
After some discussion about whether the closed session action to the not-yet-created position was improper or not, the bill to create the assistant city administrator position was withdrawn in February 2013. Public discussion of the position dropped off after the city announced a $1.68 million shortfall for that fiscal year and Betts remained both IT director and interim finance director.
When asked why this change was being proposed now as opposed to earlier in the budgeting process, Crowell said there was no real reason other than he needed to take time to evaluate the people involved and see what would be possible and work best. He said he also was trying to tackle both the fire chief position, which was filled by Matt Schofield earlier this month, and the finance director position at the same time.
"There's not anything magic to the timing," Crowell said.
Crowell said he wanted to make sure the discussion was had before the 2015 budget was set to ensure everything was decided before the new fiscal year begins Nov. 1.
In the proposal to merge both departments, Betts would not be the only employee affected. Included in the proposal are three other employee reclassifications. Crowell's memo states:
• The current systems analyst in the IT department would become the IT manager, with a 15 percent salary increase (from $56,606 to $65,097);
• The current accountant in the finance department would become the senior accountant, with a 10 percent salary increase (from $52,024 to $57,227); and
• The chief accountant would receive a 5 percent salary increase (from $62,924 to $66,070) "to recognize some of the additional impact associated with the changes."
The memo also states that, if the proposal is approved, it would save $109,424 from the current budget and $104,603 from the 2015 budget. The savings come from the funds budgeted for a finance director in both years after taking out the cost of salary increases for the four affected positions.
Mayor Eric Struemph did not return two calls for comment left Friday afternoon.