With the addition of an ombudsman position, the city is hoping to provide better services for human resources for its employees as well as allowing the corporation counsel to focus on the city’s various legal matters. Pictured is Mayor Eddie Sundquist.
P-J photo by Timothy Frudd
With City Council’s approval last week, the city is preparing to alleviate the burden of human resources on the corporation counsel by hiring an ombudsman to help handle human resources.
Mayor Eddie Sundquist said his administration is excited that the City Council approved the proposed ombudsman position to handle the city’s human resources. Currently, the city is in the process of advertising for the position and collecting the resumes of potential candidates. With the City Council’s approval of reinstating the position, Sundquist said the city will conduct its “normal hiring process.” After the interview process is completed, a candidate will be appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council.
Sundquist told The Post-Journal that the city has experienced a “spike” of different employee issues since the COVID-19 pandemic. Without a dedicated department for human resources, employee issues and disputes have been handled by Elliot Raimondo, corporation counsel. Sundquist explained that it is difficult to have the corporation counsel be involved in legal matters at the same time he is dealing with employee issues or grievances.
“Having a human resources per person allows us to deal with not only an increase in mental health issues that we’re seeing with our employees, but also just deal with general human resources and issues that come up throughout any given day,” he said. “Any large organization that you see typically has some type of dedicated human resources.”
In light of the changing state of the city’s workforce since COVID-19, Sundquist said it has become “so important” for the city to have a dedicated “point person” who has adequate time to address human resources issues.
“The idea of combining the human resources with our corporation council was a cost saving measure, and we certainly understand that, but I think the needs of employees have changed tremendously since COVID-19,” Sundquist said. “I think that organizations need to be more responsive to what’s going on in the workplace, and I think we have a duty to do so, especially given the heightened awareness for sexual harassment, for workplace violence for diversity, equity and inclusion practices that are now occurring in workplaces and cities across America.”
Sundquist believes having a dedicated position to handle human resources will be “a good thing” for both the city and its employees.
While the ombudsman position was removed from the city many years ago to save money, Sundquist explained that funding for the position is already budgeted for the remainder of the year.
“In discussing with Mr. Raimondo, our corporation counsel, who has a litany of cases that are going to be finally coming up for trial that have been kind of hanging out since COVID-19, the idea behind it was instead of finding another assistant corporation counsel, that we would convert that position to an ombudsman,” he said. “That position of assistant corporation counsel would stay vacant and would be replaced by the ombudsman position. The salary is already budgeted for the year, and we’re just utilizing that same salary to cover this position instead of replacing the assistant corporation counsel.”
According to Sundquist, part of the funding for the corporation counsel’s office is covered by various boards and commissions in Jamestown. He explained that part of the assistant corporation counsel’s position has been funded by the Jamestown Local Development Corporation, the Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency and other boards.
“That work is going to continue,” he said. “That funding is still going to be going to the corporation counsel’s office, and that ombudsman will also be providing human resources to all of the folks that are part of our development office, also known as our Urban Renewal office.”
As the position moves forward, Sundquist said the city will need to have additional discussions with JURA and other boards to determine the future funding of the position. Sundquist explained that JURA previously paid an outside attorney from a law firm to handle legal matters; however, the legal matters are currently covered “in-house” by the corporation counsel, providing additional funding for the department, which enabled the department to have enough funding for an assistant corporation counsel, which will now be replaced with the ombudsman position.
“Now, Mr. Raimondo will be doing that legal work, but there will still be a funding stream coming to Corporation Counsel’s Office that we’ve talked about using for that position,” Sundquist said.
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