Only 2.5 weeks after the former city administrator’s resignation, Prairie City elected officials have hired city clerk Lori Martin to take over the top post at city hall.
Martin was hired in a 4-1 vote during the Aug. 3 regular city council meeting. Martin, 56, came to Prairie City from State Center in March after 24-year city clerk Nancy Earles left to take the clerk’s position in her hometown of Colfax.
Martin is replacing former administrator Manny Toribio who resigned effective July 15 to take a position with Drake University in Des Moines, as assistant director of facilities planning and management.
Martin will be paid a salary of $59,000 for the first six months with a review scheduled for Feb. 1. Toribio’s salary hit $60,154 after nearly three years on the job.
Councilwoman Andrea Engle and Mayor Chad Alleger are both on the administrative committee which recommended Martin’s hire.
Alleger said Martin’s new position as administrator has not been completely defined. Her hire leaves a vacancy in the city clerk position, and Engle said Martin will take on both roles until the staffing needs of city hall can be evaluated. It is not clear how long the staffing analysis will take.
City hall staff has expressed the need for another employee to assist Martin, which could mean keeping a full or part-time clerk or creating a financial officer position. But the mayor said keeping a manageable work load at city hall is vital for Prairie City’s future.
“If we want to grow, we’re going to need another hand in the office,” he said.
But the council was not unanimous in its vote. Councilman Lyle Burkett was the lone “no” on Martin’s hire.
He’s repeating his call for a review of how the city administrator is paid. The council approved the use of the state’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes — or PILOT — program during 2016-17 budget talks earlier this year, which has allowed the city to pay a portion of the administrator and staff salaries with cash transfers from the sewer and water enterprise funds into the general fund.
Using water and sewer fund surpluses required by the state as a transferto the general fund to pay staffing costs has a second purpose — keeping the utility rates level for users.
Prairie City’s financial planner Susan Gerlach with PFM Group recommended the city use the PILOT program and said she sees the transferred funds as reasonably proportioned to the administrator’s job duties. During the 2016-17 fiscal year budget process Toribio presented examples of dozens of Iowa cities using the practice.
Nearly 50 percent of Toribio’s salary was being paid from the water and sewer accounts at the time of his resignation. According to city records, 26 percent of his salary was charged to the general fund, 25 percent to the road use special fund, 19 percent to the water enterprise fund and 30 percent to the sewer enterprise fund.
Burkett argues that the PILOT program should not use the enterprise funds to pad the general fund and pay its expenses. He says it’s shifting the tax burden from property taxpayers to all Prairie City water and sewer utility users, which include low and fixed-income residents.
“If that’s the way that city government has been set up, that’s one of the problems with this concept,” Burkett said during the Aug. 3 meeting. “We’re charged with making sure the citizens are charged sewer and water rates which correlate to the actual expenses.”
In a phone interview Monday, Burkett reiterated his confidence in Martin as a professional. But he is skeptical that Prairie City is receiving enough benefit from its investment in an administrator position.
“Prairie City is spending roughly $80,000 on an administrator after mileage and expenses. In my world, when I’m going to go out and spend $80,000 I want to know what are we getting for that,” he said.
Burkett hoped the council would discuss whether or not Prairie City needs an administrator before the Aug. 3 vote to hire Martin.
Proponents of a city administrator, and Toribio himself in his June 22 resignation letter, point to approximately $1.5 million in grants Toribio either wrote, co-wrote, or collaborated on during his nearly three years with Prairie City.
But Burkett thinks Toribio’s roll in grant writing has been overstated. The councilman points to two examples; the $500,000 Community Development Block Grant from the Iowa Economic Development Authority, which is funding more than half of the Northside Sanitary Sewer Rehabilitation lining project, and the Iowa National Heritage Foundation grant which will purchase a closed rail bed for the Prairie City segment of the multi-county “Rails to Trails” project.
Burkett said Toribio’s name was on the $500,000 CDBG but he thinks Simmering-Cory, Inc., the firm hired by the city council to assist in an economic survey essential for the grant, had a greater role in the grant award.
Burkett also said because the “Rails to Trails” project has a multi-county scope and is seen as important for central Iowa, the INHF grant would have been completed with or without the former city administrator.
Marcia Cory is the Simmering-Cory representative who worked with Prairie City on the sewer rehabilitation CDBG. She said her firm always works closely with city staff during a grant writing process.
“We view grant projects as a partnership and we need lots of input. Certainly city staff is a big part of that,” she said.
Alleger said the city administrator’s assistance was important to the CDBG and many other grants awarded to Prairie City.
“The city administrator was always collaborating with the grant writers to accomplish those grants,” Alleger said.
Contact Mike Mendenhall at mmendenhall@myprairiecitynews.com