McDonald appointed as new deputy clerk/HR manager
Susie McDonald will step into a new role at Red Oak City Hall on July 1, that of deputy clerk and HR manager.
At the regular council meeting June 5, the council approved a new job description for the combined role.
Councilperson Jeanice Lester felt the combined job was a good idea.
“This will make it so the office is not all on one person’s shoulders, and I feel everyone will be happy that we did it,” Lester said.
The Council then approved Mayor Shawnna Silvius’ recommendation to promote McDonald to the job, effective July 1, to make it an easy transition starting with the new fiscal year.
Silvius said McDonald will bring a lot to the position.
“She has a lot of experience in the field, and has been doing a phenomenal job with our payroll, our benefits, and helping people understand those benefits. I’m very proud of the work she’s done,” Silvius commented.
McDonald’s salary was set at $52,000. The salary was approved by the council.
“This is in alignment with the study that we just completed,” Silvius stated.
According to Silvius, interim city administrator Al Vacanti built the salary into the budget in anticipation of the position being created, and the new salary was factored into the new budget.
With McDonald’s appointment, the council discussed and approved an updated job description for a utility billing clerk. Silvius said the city would have around one month to fill the position.
The council also approved advertising for applicants for the position, and also discussed the purchase of a new computer and monitor for the utility billing clerk.
The council also heard an update on the Eastern Avenue road project.
Silvius said the city had received an update from the contractors, and things were moving slowly.
“The project is not moving quite as quickly as we’d like, but they should be paving by the week of June 19, if not a little before,” explained Silvius. “Some of the water system work held the project up a little bit.”
Street superintendent Chris Baird said a complete closure of the road would eventually be required.
“There’s going to come a point where there’s just no way they can leave the approaches to the driveways. They can leave them while they’re doing the rock, but once they get past that, to the final grade, the approaches will have to come up,”Baird said.
Councilperson Brian Bills asked how long the homeowners would be cut off from parking in their driveways. Baird said the time frame was around a week from the time the gravel was laid until the time they would be able to lay the concrete.
Baird added the contractor was hopeful that the closure would be no more than a week.