It’s been six months or more since the departure of the Chief Operation Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Information Technology Director for the city of Columbus and two months since the application deadline for those positions.
During Tuesday’s city council meeting, it was revealed that there is only one remaining finalist for the COO job and none for the CFO position and no mention at all of the status of IT Director position, though there are reportedly multiple qualified candidates for IT Director.
The slow progress on the hiring process should be a concern. We’ve encouraged the city’s hiring committee — which is made up of Mayor Keith Gaskin, HR Director Pat Mitchell and council members Ethel Stewart, Rusty Green, Pierre Beard and Jacqueline DiCicco — multiple times to proceed with urgency.
The hiring committee has moved in fits and starts, with long intervals in which no attention was paid to the process.
We still advocate for treating the process as a priority.
One thing that can expedite the process is to adhere to the job descriptions already established for these positions. City leaders have had ample time to determine what they expect in those positions. Any continuing ambiguity only confuses the process. It’s time to find qualified applicants for those jobs as they exist rather than move the goalposts to fit the candidates.
Proceeding with hiring in a deliberate manner isn’t the same as being hasty, though.
An organization should never hire out of desperation.
Filling the three positions with highly qualified, experienced individuals — even if it extends the hiring process — is crucial.
The hiring committee has one COO finalist who remains. Little is publicly known about this candidate, though Beard in a press conference yesterday said the individual is a good fit. We hope the position won’t be filled by attrition, though. Council members should be presented with a real choice of who will be permanent COO rather than have that remaining candidate land the job de facto.
If the last person standing doesn’t fit the criteria, the hiring committee should go back to the pool of applicants or re-open the process.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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