The city’s search for a new top boss will begin in-house, and only proceed with an external recruitment firm if the locally driven effort proves unsuccessful.
Greater Sudbury city council members voted to this effect during last week’s CAO Recruitment Committee meeting.
Under resolutions, it’s noted a recruitment search firm would only be enlisted after an unsuccessful internal-driven recruitment process.
An internal-driven recruitment process involves posting the job internally, in local media and advertising in provincial and/or national media.
If this proves unsuccessful, the city would proceed with a recruitment search firm, which comes at a cost of approximately $75,000 and extend the search by approximately three to four months.
Also under resolutions, the city’s elected officials also approved a redefined CAO position as presented, “subject to the changes proposed by the committee.”
Sudbury.com did not attend the meeting, and it was not livestreamed due to a city decision against livestreaming any CAO Recruitment Committee meetings. As such, no video is available of the meeting on the city’s website.
A city spokesperson’s explanation for not livestreaming these meetings is “consistency across all meetings of the CAO recruitment committee,” and the fact that in many instances, these meetings will be held in closed session “to ensure candidate privacy.”
This, despite the fact that many public meetings of city committees include closed sessions and the portion of the CAO recruitment committee in question was open to the public in-person.
This leaves the ambiguous line in resolutions, “subject to changes,” as the only indication which is currently publicly available that members altered the CAO position from what was proposed.
Sudbury.com reached out to city communications staff to inquire about what was changed in the city CAO position on Monday, but did not receive an immediate response.
This story will be followed up on in the event the city responds to our inquiry with insight as to how the CAO position’s redefinition was altered by the committee.
As initially proposed by staff, the redefined position lays out the chief administrative officer job with some new language and directions, including that reporting goes to city council as a whole at the same time. As defined prior to last week, the CAO reported to the mayor first.
Among job requirements, bilingualism is noted to be a “highly desirable and a definite asset,” which is an upgrade from the previous “a definite asset.”
The CAO position was vacated last month when the city’s elected officials voted to end CAO Ed Archer’s time with the city effective immediately. Mayor Paul Lefebvre didn’t explain their decision in any great detail other than to clarify that it marked a change in direction for the city.