Council OKs full-time role

Portland’s mayor will once again have a full-time assistant.

Portland City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to reestablish the position after it chose not to vote on the issue at its last meeting.

What changed the council members minds?

Mayor John Boggs reverted the mayor’s assistant job description to what it was prior to the position being reduced to part-time, minus the housing responsibilities that are no longer handled locally, rather than what was previously proposed.

The previous proposed job description, which Boggs said he replicated from another city’s assistant position, included language that allowed whoever was hired to act as fill-in for the mayor on administrative duties, among other responsibilities.

Boggs said he misunderstood what the council exactly wanted out of the position prior to introducing it at the council’s last meeting, which led to the council not seconding the motion for the proposed job to be voted on.

The approved job description includes what is typically thought to make up the mayor’s assistant position — greeting people who enter the mayor’s office, answering the telephone, scheduling duties for the mayor, etc.

The only verbal push back to the amendment came from council member Mike Aker, who asked whether the position should be paid around $15 an hour instead of $18.

Boggs responded by saying the suggested difference in the wage is minute and accounts for two hundredths of a percent of the city’s budget. He also pointed out later in the discussion that the wage is lower than other administrative assistant positions for the city.

The council in 2016 reduced the position to part-time at a wage of $11 an hour after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which paid half of the positions salary since the previous assistant also served as executive director of Portland Housing Authority, pulled its funding, citing nepotism and mismanagement.

Boggs said he has a candidate in mind for the position but they first have to put in their two weeks notice at their current job. He said he’ll be able to do his job more effectively with a more efficient filing system and a full-time assistant.

The discussion over the mayor’s assistant prompted another discussion by the council after member Janet Powers suggested that an external analysis of city employees’ wages and benefits be done prior to the council voting on the city’s budget later this year.

“I’ve been asking for this for two years,” Powers said. She said the council didn’t have enough information on the city employees’ wages they were voting on during past years’ budgets.

Without a report such as this, Powers said the council can’t make employee wages competitive to attract good workers because they don’t know how Portland’s wages compare to other cities.

The proposal to explore potential evaluators passed unanimously. The council requested that an analysis of all employees wage benefits of the past five years be included so they can compare it with cities of a similar size.

Powers said there was an internal study done under Mayor Randy Geesaman but that an external investigation would be more beneficial.

In other business, council members Michele Brewster, Dave Golden, Matt Goldsworthy, Don Gillespie, Kent McClung, Aker and Powers:

•Heard Boggs is relaxing a rule he established requiring council members to act as a liaison of sorts for different city departments on a weekly basis. Previously, council members were required to meet weekly with an assigned city department to learn enough about it to speak on its behalf at city council meetings, primarily when budgetary matters were being voted on. Boggs said he realized most people on the council have full-time jobs, making a weekly report unrealistic. Boggs encouraged council members to still learn as much as they can about city departments on their own time.

•Reappointed Powers, McClung and Gillespie to Portland Plan Commission.

•Heard the city is looking into claims made by Charles Tague in a letter to the editor to The Commercial Review on Jan. 13. In the letter, Tague said street flooding causes his basement to flood when the city gets “a decent rain.”

•Discussed a suggestion by McClung that council members receive email accounts that council members can use to communicate with one another from the city. He recognized these accounts, like all email accounts off public officials, would be considered public record.

Boggs said he sees no reason why members shouldn’t have email accounts and that he’ll look into getting accounts set up for the seven members.