Board won’t hire firm

Portland’s superintendents won’t be writing job descriptions for city employees, and neither will an outside consulting firm.
Portland Board of Works voted down Thursday morning a motion to hire Waggoner, Irwin, Sheele and Associates to help create job descriptions for employees in each city department.
The proposed deal would have had the firm work with the city’s department superintendents to write descriptions for each of its employees at a cost of around $4,000.
The city’s department heads — water superintendent Doug Jackson, street and parks superintendent Ryan Myers and wastewater superintendent Bob Brelsford — explained that trying to write out what each employee does would be near impossible, as workers are cross-trained in other departments and cover a wide range of duties.
Being a smaller utility, Jackson said employees end up doing more than what they’re hired for, sometimes in other departments, which is difficult to explain in writing.
“Your job description is whatever you’re asked to do,” said Jackson.
The city’s insurance company recommended the task since descriptions hadn’t been created since the 1980s. While they were meant to help in assessing who qualified for positions, the descriptions allowed excuses to be made for not doing additional work outside of what was laid out in writing, explained Jackson.
The initial proposal was for Waggoner, Irwin, Sheele and Associates to work with the superintendents to write the descriptions at a cost of $8,640 and travel expenses. But at the board’s last meeting, members decided to give department heads the opportunity to write the descriptions themselves before looking at hiring an outside firm.
“If it’s something they could use that would benefit them, I’m all in favor of it,” said board member Bill Gibson. “Otherwise, if they don’t want it, it’s whatever they want to do, they’ve got to control the people.”
“I don’t see where it would benefit anything,” replied Brelsford.
The board unanimously voted against hiring the firm.
In other business, the board:
•Approved the purchase of a 2015 service truck for the water department from Fuqua Chrysler, which presented the lowest quote at $22,332. The department’s 2003 Ford 250 will be traded in.
It also approved purchasing a 2009 International 4300 truck at a cost of $39,500 from Dave Imel Motors, Bluffton, for the street department. It will replace a 1994 longbed truck, which was used for hauling snow in the winter and brush in the summer.
•Agreed to send back the proposed Safe Routes to School contract to consulting engineer firm Beam, Longest and Neff LLC, after it received comments from Indiana Department of Transportation. Board members want the firm to review the comments and make revisions to coincide with INDOT’s suggestions for the plan, which looks to make the areas surrounding city schools safer by creating additional sidewalks.