Officials have different views on hiring issue

Outside consultants should be a temporary solution to bridge a gap in services, he said, not a long-term proposition taking over services that the city should provide.

“When we tie ourselves up with consultants for every problem, we lose track of the solution and only create more impediments,” Kulikoff said.

“I just feel like we are wasteful spending here.”

The mayor said he has heard that qualified individuals have applied for positions, but then never heard back from city officials.

“The reason we can’t perform in-house is we don’t have the personnel,” Councilmember Jim Creighton said, despite months of public advertising. “I don’t see anybody breaking down our door.”

At least five major positions are open in the city — city manager, planning and community development director, public works director, finance director and human resources director.

The city’s website lists eight other open positions, including police officer, lifeguard and senior building inspector.

Interim city manager Jim Hart disputed Kulikoff’s claim that the city is ignoring qualified applicants, saying there have not been any.

He did have one applicant for planning director who he was to meet with shortly, but otherwise there hasn’t been any real interest in any of the positions advertised, he said.

The city has advertised in professional journals to target applications for specific positions, without any response outside of a small number who did not have the necessary qualifications.

“We’re struggling,” Hart said.

Cal City is not alone in the seemingly fruitless search for municipal employees, he said. According to news from the International City Managers Association conference last fall, it is a nationwide problem.

“There are not sufficient qualified people across the country,” he said.

Hart noted that Cal City faces the additional challenge of its remote setting, as well as the need to offer an attractive enough salary to draw applicants.

“That’s the only thing you can do, is make the salary so attractive that no one can turn it down,” he said.

Hart also has reached out to consulting firms he has worked with in the past to see if they had leads on potential hires, but those firms are having the same hiring issues as cities.

“It’s not that we’re not looking for people,” he said. “We’re looking for people, but we’re not having success. Unfortunately, that’s the situation we’re in.”

agatlin@avpress.com