“I can give you a very simple answer: we don’t know,” says Westlock County reeve Lou Hall.
The CAO, Leo Ludwig, left in May for a period of three months. Deputy reeve Brian Coleman explained at the time that it was sick leave. On May 12, the interim CAO, Rick McDonald, stepped into the role.
Then, the question was “why bring an interim CAO?” Other municipalities, for example the neighbouring Town of Westlock, have tasked other department directors as interims—before becoming CAO herself, Simone Wiley was in the interim position from February to November 2019, while Dwight Dibben was on leave.
McDonald’s tenure is only for three months, until Aug. 1. He explains that a two-week overlap period was written into the contract for precaution.
When asked about the decision to hire an interim—as opposed to promote from within,—Coleman said that council didn’t want to add undue burden to another staff member. The only person who could’ve filled the role was director of corporate services Diane Urkow, but the financial situation was too stressful to add another job, Coleman said.
While he’s been with the county, McDonald’s CAO reports to county have included some staffing issues: a union-management conversation June 16, some reassignment of duties. They’ve raised some questions about what exactly McDonald is at the county for.
He says it has nothing to do with restructuring.
“Some desks have moved,” he joked during a July 9 interview. “Some of the functions have changed within the organization, but no restructuring.”
McDonald also added that if changes are made, they’re happening because staff bring them up.
It’s internal, it’s fine, it’s just making some adjustments that they think need to happen and I’m supportive of that.”
As for whether or not he’s fixing things at the county, McDonald says that it’s in his nature—and his 40-year experience—to fix what he sees is broken.
“But I don’t think we’re making major fixes, they’re minor fixes. Internally, some people have way too much on their desk where others (it) would be better if they did it. Or some people did some things before, which got changed, and now they’re saying it didn’t work so let’s put it back.”
McDonald said “why bring in an interim CAO” wasn’t his question to answer. Yet in his experience, most of the time he fills a gap when a CAO leaves—that was the case the last time he was interim CAO with the county in 2014, after Edward LeBlanc left.
But he did add that sometimes it’s healthy to bring in an outside perspective for council to benefit from.
Hall, who can—and did—answer the question, said “Well, why would you hire another newspaper reporter if one was off sick?”
Except even the Westlock News currently only employs one person in the newsroom—plans to add a second after the editor’s move to Athabasca in March have been stalled by COVID-19.
“We have amazing staff that work here but things have to get done and I think it's only fair to everyone involved that we have someone come in and take over the rains in the interim. That's very common practice in a lot of businesses," Hall added.
For contrast, however, Urkow is also away and Peggy Hardinge, manager of finances, has been filling in since at least June 9.
As for why she said council doesn’t know if Ludwig is returning: “We haven’t heard anything since he told us he was going to be off. We have to wait for him to get back to us.”
Unless they hear otherwise, they expect Ludwig will be back, she added. “Three months being away, a lot of things happen.”
