Travis County Commissioners Court

June 5, 2012 - Item 8
Agenda

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>> Backing up, 8, consider and take appropriate action regarding process to fill position of county executive emergency services, including, a, job description, b, hiring process timeline, and d, job posting.

>> Thank you, judge, I'm danny hobby and I'm the county executive of emergency services and I'm here to talk about steps to go forward and filling my positions.
As I have given you notice of my retirement notice from January 31, 2013, I think it's important that we move forward and it would be wonderful if I could actually work with this person for a few months before I retire.
So what I had before you and I've been working with diane, I really appreciate all of her work, because she had to put this together, although with her it's -- she's already done this many times so it's real easy, and of course as you know over the last several years I've actually conducted and officiated hiring processes as well including county executives, so I feel like that we will be a really good team and get this done.
I think we are going to get a lot of good applicants.
I think this is something that will be very popular among people that have existing jobs around the country, and so I'm excited about the fact that we're going to go through this process and hopefully get someone that will come in and take the initiatives and move forward with them over the years to come.
But what I have before you is to consider the job description.
We're fortunate because you had us look at all the job descriptions last year.
In fact, I think you approved this one as well as the other ones, February of 2011, and we went and if you remember we made them to where they're more compatible with each other but also taking out some of those things which were hindrances to us in trying to get the best candidate.
So what you'll see in my particular job description, you should have a copy of it, hopefully you received that last week along with the timeline.
The only thing that you don't have, which I guess you just gave them, is the posting, which she and I worked on.
And so what -- with the job description, what you're going to see is that you're not going to get someone in here without experience, with someone that's not able to have hands-on and is familiar with the various agencies that I'm so fortunate to work with.
And as you know, it's kind of all over the board.
But for the most part it is public safety, including the wireless.
Wireless, of course, as you know, is radios.
It's two-way radios, so it's not wifi and those kinds of things.
But the job description I think was revised to really try to put more depth into the job description, and really try to get someone that has the experience but also the senior management experience.
That's something you're going to see too.
It isn't just having a degree.
Even though we say it's preferred to have a master's degree, that would be good, but it also, I think, again, with the type of work that's going to be done here and needed to be done here, then I think you're going to have to have someone that has experience in the areas that I work with.
So that's the job description.
I don't know, judge, if you want to -- and court, if you'd like to go through each one of them, were you we had to do with the timeline because that's very important, and that is to try to come up with, and you see a very aggressive timeline, but I think it's one that we can meet.
If you give us permission to go forward.
And that timeline would basically -- and correct me if I'm wrong, diane, is that we would have someone in here by September, if all were to go well, or October.
Now, I have already spoken with the operational planning team because as you know, you've authorized them to be a part of this process in any major decision recommendations to the court, and so I spoke with them last week and asked that if diane and I could go and do this initial process, then what we would do is bring them the top candidates, have them interview those candidates, and then, of course, those recommendations then would come to you as the court, and then you would interview the candidates.
So this way we can streamline the process somewhat by not starting with the operational planning team but letting us go ahead and get through the process, and I'll have people working with me too.
I'll have folks that I will bring in that I think will be a benefit that will get us -- and work with diane and that will get us there as far as screening the applicants and getting to what we consider to be the top applicants.
So that process is in place.
If you agree to go with that, and then of course the last one is the actual posting itself.
There you -- reading that for the first time, I'm sorry you're reading it for the first time but it's short, but it basically takes the job description and then added a few little things and diane did too to make it to where it's understandable and someone can understand what it is they're going to be applying for.
I've already had people call me, which I'm sure you're going to have people calling you in regards to this and they're real nice at first but say, oh, you're leaving.
Oh, when is your job going to be finished?

>> [laughter]

>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners.]

>> Yeah.
That's kind of typical language?

>> Those are typical and they're on all of the county executive job descriptions?

>> Are they?

>> Yes.
If you would like to put them through their paces, I'm sure they would appreciate that.

>> I have a hard time seeing danny doing a whole lot of these.
The other thing is we have today is must have a valid Texas driver's license.
If you move here from out of state --

>> We would expect them to get one.

>> So should we put in parenthesis, or be able to obtain one.
Not a big deal, but -- if you live in Texas, we would expect to you have one.

>> We can make that change.
And because we are going to go national with this.
We expect to go on a national search.

>> Speaking of national, what kind of advertising do we hope to do?

>> Danny will look for some professionals, but we'll also look for the public administrators.

>> What publications?

>> We have not discussed the publications yet.
I'll get my recruiters in there, but we are looking at definitely some of the national public administrators, the municipal and county government associations to start with and then any professional --

>> And I've already gotten some good suggestions on where to go and throw this out to you.

>> So a low cost, but broad outreach.

>> Absolutely.

>> Questions, comments?
Move approval of all three.

>> Second.

>> Reluctantly.

>> Discussion on the motion?
All in favor?
It passes on a vote of seven to zero with Commissioner Davis temporarily off the dais.
Thank you very much.
Also thank you for your patience today.

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