Hoping to avoid problems related to municipal employment, New Castle City Council members have decided the city needs a full-time Human Resources position.
The council met Monday and voted their unanimous support for Resolution 12072015-2, which amends Ordinance 3729. The ordinance in question established the salaries for administrative and management employees of the City of New Castle. The amendment creates a full-time position in the Public Works personnel budget within the General Fund for a Human Resources assistant position at a pay rate of $1,472 bi-weekly.
Council President Mark Koger said whoever is hired for the new position will handle HR-related matters including insurance, assistance during the hiring process and responding to employee grievances. He or she will work through the clerk-treasurer’s office.
“We’ve been asking for an HR person for quite awhile. It’s a needed position for the betterment of the city, to keep us moving forward in a positive direction. This will be someone the employees and the union can go to if there’s a problem of some kind,” Koger said.
Also passed was Resolution 12072015-1, which allows New Castle Clerk-Treasurer Christy York to encumber funds from the 2015 budget for use in 2016. Specified in this measure were $32,875 to pay for lights and striping on nine police cars and $155,441 to cover a paving contract with E&B Paving for work to be completed next year.
Ordinance 3740 was passed on second reading. Rules were then suspended to allow for a third reading and the measure again passed. This ordinance allows the clerk-treasurer, the city’s chief financial officer, to pay certain claims prior to approval by the Board of Works. This is being done in order to avoid late fees.
Mayor Greg York also read a proclamation in support of the State of Indiana’s upcoming bicentennial celebration, which officially kicks off locally with the raising of a special bicentennial flag at Noon Friday on the courthouse lawn.
“I, Greg York, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the City of New Castle, Indiana, do hereby proclaim the month of December, 2015, Indiana’s 199th anniversary of statehood,” York said, adding that the bicentennial flag supplied by the state will soon be flying outside city hall as well as on the courthouse lawn.
