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Special City Council Meeting Monday, May 27,2015 Page 4 accounting and financing operations. Mr. Miller noted the need for this type of skill set in the employment marketplace. Councilmember McGehee questioned if the intent was to make openings available for younger employees, or to fill open positions as they occur to make a concerted effort to hire younger people to grow with the organization. Mr. Schirmacher responded that as younger staff were brought on board and moved through the process they could be promoted within the department if they chose to remain versus moving on to pursue their career elsewhere. Mr. Schir- macher advised that the intent was not to rotate staff but to provide succession planning, encouraging younger employees to grow with you and stay for 5-6 years and beyond, versus moving on after only 3-4 years. Councilmember Etten questioned if the intent in repurposing current staff to ad- dress customer service enhancement, would the current Receptionist spend half time at the front desk and then the two proposed new employees would fill in the remaining half time. Mr. Schirmacher responded affirmatively that the current Receptionist would be half time at the front desk and then freed-up for the remainder of her time else- where. At the request of Councilmember Etten, Mr. Schirmacher provided a summary of some of the duties performed by the current Receptionist, including receipting for the Community Development Department and accepting Utility payments coming across the front counter. Mr. Schirmacher advised that the intent was that this person would continue doing that in the morning, and then move elsewhere in the afternoon, providing more support for the City's Utility Billing functions, alerting utility customers about any significant fluctuations in their usage (e.g. leaks) available with the radio read technologies, in addition to other data available for customers using available data. At the further request of Councilmember Etten, Mr. Schirmacher summarized some of the additional duties of the new staffing during the afternoons at the Re- ception desk beyond that already listed, and including serving as a hub to direct traffic, Laserfische duties, filing, and sorting paperwork. Mr. Schirmacher reiter- ated that the current staff is performing all of these duties now, but the current pay and skill level of this employee was not matching this entry-level work; and the preference was not to dedicate higher-level resources to lower-level duties. Councilmember Etten questioned how staff retention and training efforts, and the gradients in between may affect how the department operates or if there would be associated costs not yet identified.