Talent recruiter Amy Cell (left) speaks Jan. 22 during the Lincoln Park City Council meeting, trying to tactfully explain to the body that its experience expectations for a city manager are inconsistent with the salary they have budgeted.
Experience desired; budgeted salary may be incompatible
By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
LINCOLN PARK – After an unsuccessful first round city manager search, talent recruiter Amy Cell tried Jan. 22 to convince the City Council that its experience expectations were inconsistent with its budgeted salary.
“The market for city managers is above that, so I’m not surprised that a lot of candidates had compensation expectations at the upper end of the range,” she said.
Mayor Michael Higgins said the original upper salary range the city council established was $140,000 annually.
“That’s probably going to be our ceiling, rather than a negotiation point,” he said.
Cell then asked the council members if they were flexible with respect to their candidate criteria.
“Before we were very focused on prior city managers,” she said. “Is there more flexibility to consider department leaders who don’t have prior city manager experience?”
Higgins said prior city manager experience was non-negotiable.
Cell said the council might not be successful matching the council’s salary range and candidate criteria.
“I just want to make sure that I am setting expectations the best that I can,” she said. “When we did the search before, prior city manager candidates, especially those that had very strong career histories and experiences, were in the $150,000 to $160,000 range.”
Cell said that many of the candidates in the original search pool were receiving more competitive offers from other interested employers, and those offers were above the $140,000 salary ceiling the council had established.
She said she was willing to proceed to identify other additional candidates, but wanted to caution the council that the candidate pool might not be as strong as it would prefer.
Higgins said they might consider assistant city managers from large cities, as well as experienced department heads.