By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
The city of Hays is hoping to more people will soon be applying for positions with the city which have been difficult to fill the past few years.
The police and emergency communications departments are constantly looking for qualified applicants to fill their positions.
“On average the police department has three vacant positions and the communications department has one vacant position,” Assistant City Manager Jacob Wood told city commissioners last week. He also noted several city employees have left the organization to live in smaller communities.
Salina, Newton, Hutchinson and Derby have relaxed their employee residency requirements, according to Wood, resulting in larger applicant pools.
All city of Hays employees are currently required to live within Ellis County. The city manager, assistant city manager and department heads must live within the Hays city limits. All public safety employees must live within the planning boundary–three miles outside of Hays.
City staff recommended relaxing the residency requirements to find and retain employees. City commissioners agreed.
The proposal: (a) The City Manager, Assistant City Manager and all department directors employed by the City shall live within the City limits. (b) All other City employees shall live within whatever jurisdiction or venue or distance from the City as determined by the City Manager.
“I think it’s really important to stay competitive with areas around us,” said Commissioner Sandy Jacobs. “If they can do this in other areas, we should be able to as well. I know it’s difficult for Police Chief Scheibler (to find new employees). If this aids in him getting a better applicant pool, I’m all for it.”
Vice Mayor James Meier said he had talked with the spouse of a current Hays police officer who said the family wants to purchase a home in Victoria or Ellis. “I think this change is good,” Meier said.
Mayor Shaun Musil pointed out a number of people live in other towns “30 and 40 miles out” and work in Hays.
“My wife is a school teacher and there’s people who drive as far as Phillipsburg to Hays for many years,” Musil said. “To me, opening up the pool is just common sense.”
Currently there are 19 city employees out of 181 who live outside of the town.
“We don’t think employees are going to live outside of the city or move right of way,” Wood stressed. “We do want to compete. If we can one or two employees here or there in the police department, that’s farther ahead than we are today.”
Commissioner Lance Jones agreed with relaxing the requirements, but said he preferred the city commissioners retain the authority to do determine the restrictions. “I’m okay with this. I think this needs to happen for recruitment purposes. It’s expensive to live in Hays,” Jones added. “But the way we’re funded, people who live in Victoria or elsewhere and work in Hays, we’re going to get their sales tax.”
The city of Hays general fund is financed through the city sales tax, the only town in Kansas to do so.
Commissioners voted 4-0 to approve an ordinance that would amend the employee residency requirement to allow the city manager to determine residency requirements based on response times.
Commissioner Henry Schwaller was absent from the meeting.