By Michael Howell
Ravalli County’s Information Technology (IT) department has been in flux since former Director Joe Frohlich left to go to work for the state about six months ago. The County Commissioners hired Kevin Mark to replace Frohlich a few months ago but he quit a few weeks ago without showing up for his last week of work.
As a result, IT employees Rick Hancock and Ace Johnson came to the commissioners with an alternative proposal a few weeks ago. According to the two IT employees, they have been handling all the work in the department since Frohlich left. They said the new Interim Director that had been hired for $55,000 a year and quit within a month or so had not been doing any of the work on the IT system.
They proposed that the Commissioners consider appointing Hancock as the new director and hiring an Administrative Assistant. They said that they had successfully absorbed the director’s duties and could continue it with some administrative help. They suggested that the Director’s salary of $55,000 could be split with about $23,000 going to pay the administrative assistant and the remaining $39,000 being split with 60% going to Hancock as Director and 40% going to Johnson to compensate for the increased workload. They noted that, based on a review of other counties, Ravalli County’s IT department had a 50% greater workload than the next busiest county.
The commissioners took the suggestions under advisement and Commissioner J.R. Iman said that he was in favor of doing more thorough vetting when they hire. Most of the commissioners expressed some concern about reducing the staff from three to two even if a secretary was hired.
According to Commission Chair Jeff Burrows, the Board subsequently met and decided to pull the advertisement for an interim director.
Burrows said they took the suggestion to increase the pay of the two current employees to compensate for the additional workload, but they were not going to hire an administrative assistant or a new interim director yet.
“We want to see how this works for bit before we make that decision,” said Burrows.
