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The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors is gearing up for a final decision on their county IT services.
At the regular meeting Oct. 12, the supervisors finalized plans for the interview process, as well as received an update from County Auditor Stephanie Burke on the current applications they have received for the new position.
“A couple of the applicants who applied for the position when we started the search the first time have applied again, and we’ve gotten a couple of brand-new applications from interested parties as well,” Burke said.
As the county, when discussions for IT services first got underway was trying to determine whether to hire a new full-time employee or contract for services, they had yet to finalize an interview process, and Supervisors Chair Donna Robinson said now was the time to act.
“We need to determine when and how we’ll be conducting these IT applicant interviews, and we also need to determine how many members of this board are going to participate in the interviews,” Robinson explained.
Supervisor Mike Olson asked when the time frame was to begin the interviews, as his time for the next couple of weeks would be limited due to his other job. Due to the fact that the new IT hire would report directly to the supervisors, Robinson felt unanimous participation was needed.
“I think that it is important that the entire board takes part. That is how we’ve done it in the past. We could possibly schedule the interviews as part of our regular meeting, or we could have a special meeting among all the board members following one of our regular meetings,” commented Robinson.
The board was unanimously in agreement that all the supervisors be present during the interview process. Robinson also suggested interim IT director Beau Boeye, and representatives from Iowa Counties Information Technology participate in the interviews. Supervisor Charla Schmid also felt some of the department heads should participate as well.
“The department heads are the employees that will work with them daily, and I would say their participation is important. We also need to finalize which department head the IT director will contact first if there’s an IT problem,” Schmid said.
Robinson said Burke would likely be the first person the new IT director would contact if there was a problem. She also suggested interviews begin in November.
“If we waited November, that would give us three to four weeks. And I know that of our five-member board, we have three people that are heavily involved in agriculture, and an election, so maybe we’re looking at beginning the interviews in mid-November,” Robinson advised.
Another issue was that Boeye’s schedule was conflicted during Tuesday mornings, which might affect his participation in the interview process. Olson suggested the board contact Boeye and the ICIT representatives and see what their schedules were like.
“Once this harvest is over, I’m sure that Randy, and Mark, and I can sit in on an interview at whatever time works, because in addition to our presence, I think it’s important to have Beau Boeye and the other IT professionals there,” Olson stated.
Cooper asked if the supervisors would interview all the applicants, or pare the list down. Robinson suggested the supervisors get copies of all the applicants, and make that decision between now and when they set the official interview schedule, and get director from Boeye and ICIT representatives to comment on whether the applicant would be a good fit. Burke said the county’s outside IT provider Solutions could also be contacted to review the applicants as well.
The supervisors tentatively scheduled Nov. 16 and Nov. 17 as the dates to hold the interviews.
In other business, the supervisors:
• Approved a tax transfer from rural services basic to secondary roads, in the amount of $385,086 and a tax transfer from general basic to secondary roads, in the amount of $24,230.
• Approved changing the regular meeting date from Nov. 2 to Nov. 4 due to the city and school elections.
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