Council shortsighted on Anderson concerns
Discussion at last Tuesday’s Bossier City Council meeting gave reason to wonder if council members might be taking a hiatus from their notable work in advance planning.
At issue was Bossier City utilities director Jeffrey Anderson’s request to adjust his budget to allow a moderate increase in pay for a couple of the department’s Class IV license-holder employees. The result would be a net zero impact on the budget as Anderson was simply moving funds from a vacant position for the pay increases.
As part of his request, Anderson had prepared a comprehensive review of the Class IV operator issue, including state law requiring that every municipality with a population exceeding 25,000 to have Class IV operators overseeing operations of the utility systems. For Bossier City, this means nine such Class IV licenseholders each day – one for the city’s water treatment plant, and one each for the city’s two wastewater treatment plants, three eight hour shifts per day. In order to staff that schedule and provide for illness, vacations and training absences, Anderson said his department should employ 20 to 22 of these Class IV license-holders.
Anderson’s review also detailed the education/training process for attaining the Class IV license; in a perfect world, the process might be achievable in two years, but more realistically it takes four to six years. “The requirements for obtaining a Class IV license are rather arduous, time consuming and expensive,” Anderson said.
It makes sense then that Class IV license-holders aren’t a numerous group. Anderson’s review notes there are only 554 Class IV Wastewater Treatment license-holders and 603 Class IV Water Treatment license-holders in Louisiana. Anderson’s concern is one of adequately staffing the city’s utility department with these required licenseholders. Anderson said these license holders are “high-demand employees” so the city’s budget limitations impede hiring Class IV operators. That leaves maintaining the level of city employed operators and training new ones.
“If you consider the majority of these employees are supervisory level and not operator level, work in private industry, or work for larger municipalities, recruiting this level of talent is simply not an easy task,” Anderson noted in his review, and updated the council on his department’s status. “One has left for employment with Benteler Tube, one has left for employment with another municipality, and two to three are currently pursing employment elsewhere.”
Anderson’s review and request to adjust his budget in an effort to begin seriously needed planning to provide the Class IV operator staffing required to meet present state mandates and a growing regulatory environment received about the most shortsighted council reception as has been witnessed in years.
Council Members Tommy Harvey, Jeff Free and Scott Irwin either didn’t have an opinion or questions about this clearly important issue. Jeff Darby was more concerned with having the council clerk read the 2010 ordinance that addressed the Council’s fiscal controls that prohibited pay increases absent council approval. Darby treated this ordinance as some set-in-stone law that couldn’t be amended, yet the council routinely amends previously adopted ordinances.
Don “Bubba” Williams preferred to wait until September when the council would begin reviewing the city’s 2016 budget to consider Anderson’s request. It’s fair here to point out that whatever the council decides on the budget won’t be effective until January 2016, and that’s six long months for valuable folks to find better prospects.
And Tim Larkin’s suggestion that, “someone might hold the city hostage” for a higher wage in exchange for leaving city employment was not even responsive to Anderson’s review. City employees may be loyal, but they have every right to pursue employment that best supports their families and aspirations.
Only David Montgomery seemed to understand Anderson’s purpose before the council. Montgomery reminded his colleagues that the Council had “the latitude not to bypass the law but to make an amendment in our careful judgment and analysis on these unique situations.” Montgomery also reminded the council that per city charter, the utility department is to be run as a business, and Anderson is doing just that. Anderson’s request for authority to provide the pay increases was defeated by the council. But after the meeting, he said his purpose before the council wasn’t one of crisis mode, but instead informing the council of impending issues and perhaps costs in his department.
Anderson has recently overseen the construction of a $74 million water treatment plant, a $60 million wastewater treatment plant and effectively manages a $32 million budget. Given his consistent success in management, council members want to soon revisit his concerns about staffing critical positions in an ever more competitive employment market. Coming from behind to solve such problems generally requires unnecessary and costly remedies.
Marty Carlson, a freelance writer, has been covering local news for the past 17 years. She can be reached via email at martycarlson1218@ gmail.com.
