Travis County Commissioners Court
October 27, 2009,
Item 15
15.
consider and take appropriate action on proposed routine personnel amendments.
>> there was one question --
>> I had one question regarding the it director position that is being filled.
a wonderful thing.
i understand that there were more than 80 applications for this -- this position which I am not at all surprised by, it is a 118,000-dollar position, were there any interviews conducted for this position?
>> joe can answer that question.
i am sorry, I can't.
>> sure.
>> sorry, what was the question?
-- I was just wondering, this is the new director it position which is a very important position to us and a very high level job, high level middle management job.
>> right.
and I was wondering, I understand that there were more than 80 applications for the position.
i was unclear whether interviews were conducted.
>> we did not conduct any interviews other than this one because the -- the qualifications for the rest of the candidates didn't measure up to rod's qualifications.
and the main issue here is that he has all the integration knowledge for our justice system and we did discuss it with the steering committee members and they are 100% behind it.
>> I -- I personally would express a desire and perhaps we should revisit this in terms of county rules that an interview process of more than one -- I mean, we have the same issue with ctrma appointment, the issue came up earlier today, that we should at least try to have a field of more than one -- particularly for a job of such high-level importance as this.
>> well, are you saying of the 80 that applied, they did not meet the minimum qualifications?
>> they didn't have the experience that -- that this candidate has, they didn't have knowledge about our software, did not have -- could -- the group that he will be taking over was -- is one of three groups that reports to me and most of the staff is either in operations or in the customer service area, and none of the other candidates had any kind of justice background or -- or a background in government at all.
>> there is a lot of difference between 2 and 80.
and I don't know that going through interviews when you've already made your selection makes sense.
i mean to go through -- second people through agony when you have already made that decision, is my position on it.
>> I -- I am -- I just -- I am merely questioning the -- the probability that there only would have been one applicant out of more than 80 that could do the job, but I -- I defer to your decision in this.
i think perhaps some of this is for lack of -- of executive manager in administrative, that for this high level of a position, it seems -- particularly in this economic climate, that we could have found more than one applicant to have all of the preferred qualifications, although I have no doubt that mr.
brown is exceedingly qualified and -- and look forward to working with him.
i just would put forth that we might look to our policy with regard to this kind of recruitment process.
this is a high-level management position.
>> who is on the committee?
>> walter and judy and myself.
went through the resumes and selected rod and we heard he was available.
>> okay.
rod is not a county employee.
he is a consultant who has been --
>> he is working for tiberon right now, manager of the tiberon office right here in Austin.
>> so he would be equivalent of a consultant to us, tiberon employee who is consultant for the county?
>> yes, he spent a lot of time over here on behalf of tiberon working with our staff and the departments.
>> what is the court's preference?
well, we usually defer to a lot of our managers even if we had an administrative operations executive manager, there probably would have been some kind of subcommittee and then they would have gone through this screening process and applications and then we would still defer to the department head who probably has more information about what is required and knows what is in displace.
i would move approval, judge, of 15.
>> second.
>> discussion?
all those in favor.
this passes by unanimous vote.
thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 1:40 PM
