The Town of Athabasca’s council voted to offer the position of chief administrative after an hour-long in-camera session at their last meeting.
On Nov. 1 Coun. Tanu Evans made the motion to extend an offer to Joe Day with a starting salary of $120,000 per year and a six-month probation period. At the end of probation, the base salary will rise to $124,000 along with a moving allowance of $6,000.
According to the Prince Albert Daily Herald, Day was the finance director of Prince Albert, Sask. until January, where he had worked for almost 14 years. Public accounts statements published by the city state that Day was paid $134,638.28 in 2014 $143,518.47 in 2015.
Speaking after the meeting, interim CAO Doug Topinka said the offer had been extended.
“I relayed to the consultant council’s motions, and I haven’t heard anything back,” he said on Nov. 3. He also said he could not share a copy of the contract until it was signed by both parties.
After Evans put his motion on the table, Coun. Shelly Gurba asked whether it was acceptable to vote on it or not.
“I want to know if we can vote on this with nothing coming back on us,” she said.
Topinka said the only piece of the offer missing from the motion was detail concerning what would happen if the person was fired without cause.
Evans said those sections could be added as a second motion after a vote was held.
At this point, Coun. Verhaeghe said not enough thought had been given to the motion for a vote.
“Unfortunately, I feel that some members around this table don’t really know what they’re doing,” he said. “They’re out of their league at present time. I don’t think enough thought was given to this.”
Evans replied by saying that Verhaeghe, “has not said anything productive, and instead is just going to constantly berate those of us trying to get stuff done.”
Coun. Joanne Peckham said she resented Verhaeghe’s comments, stating, “I hired a really good CAO that you guys ran off.”
Mayor Roger Morrill called a point of order on both Evans and Peckham during the exchange before calling for a vote on the motion to extend the offer to Day.
The motion carried 4-3 with Councillors Nichole Adams, Gurba, Evans and Peckham voting in favour and Morrill and Councillors Steven Schafer and Verhaeghe voting against it.
Following the vote, Topinka clarified what would happen should the new CAO be terminated without cause during the probation period. Should that happen, the CAO would either be paid three months salary or be given three months notice.
Should the CAO be fired after the probation period without cause, they would be entitled to six months pay plus an extra month’s pay for each year they were employed following the probation period to a maximum of 12 months.
Following this clarification, Gurba made a motion to vote the remaining details into the offer. The motion carried 4-3 with Gurba, Evans, Peckham and Adams voting in favour and Schafer, Verhaeghe and Morrill voting against it.
After the meeting, Verhaeghe said he did not vote in favour of the motion to extend the offer because he felt there were certain aspects of the motion that breached in-camera discussions.
“The interview process was to be treated as an in-camera discussion, so any names of candidates, in my opinion, were considered to be in camera until they could be announced, who the successful candidate may have been,” he said.
He said he believed there were a number of ways to phrase the motion without naming the candidate. He suggested that council could have made an offer “as per our in-camera discussion,” or “to Applicant #1 as per our in-camera discussion.”
“To just put it all out there, I felt was unprofessional,” Verhaeghe said, noting that it could have put the candidate’s current employment at risk or a potential employer could have lowered another offer.
“It could have put us in a potential situation for liability,” he added.
The town has been on the hunt for a new CAO since August 10, when town council terminated their contact with then-CAO Josh Pyrcz who had he tendered his resignation.
Warren Zyla was appointed interim CAO on August 15, but stepped down on October 4. Council then appointed former CAO Doug Topinka to take over the role on an interim basis. Topinka is currently being paid $100 up to 40 hours per week, and is not approved to work overtime without permission of council.
On Sept. 6, town council voted to hire a consultant to conduct the search for the new CAO; Dimitri Pojidaeff was secured afterward.
– With files from Allendria Brunjes
