Wellesley residents aren’t likely to be heartbroken the township has put off hiring a new tax collector, but the finance department vacancy will continue while councillors evaluate the job description. The position has been unfilled since the end of December, with other staff members picking up the slack in the meantime. But the workload is so high that the position should be filled quickly and made full-time, director of finance Diane Lorbetski told councillors meeting Mar. 5.
A full-time tax collector would deal with the the numerous requests for assistance from taxpayers, as well as the day-to-day maintenance of the assessment roll and collecting functions. But Coun. Herb Neher said council needs more information before going down that road. “I want someone to come into the office and look at policies and various things like how we are filing things and using computers,” he said. “We need someone to look at the general workloads of everyone in the office and see how they are coping and what they doing and are not doing before we make a decision on this.”
Lorbestski, however, said time is of the essence, pointing to her overworked staff. “We can’t possibly wait to hire (an outside consultant) and wait as they go through everything – it can’t be done,” she argued. “Currently Theresa Bisch is the deputy treasurer, the tax collector and payroll officer. It is too much, she can’t continue to do all that. We are short a body, we are short 1,820 hours of work a year and we can’t cover that.”
Coun. Shelly Wagner and Mayor Ross Kelterborn agreed with Lorbetski and were in favour of proceeding with the request.
“These ladies know best as to how much work they can handle and I know we have to watch what we do but as a working person you can only handle so much,” said Wagner. “You get overloaded and mistakes occur.”
Neher, Paul Hergott and Jim Olender were in favour of hiring an outside consultant to take a look at the inner workings of the office to make sure each job was being done correctly and that any policies that needed to be made were made before they decided to hire for the position of tax collector.
“I would like to have someone come in and look at some of the things we can improve in and some of the things that we can tighten up on,” said Neher. “Perhaps we should be looking at other municipalities that have a similar population base and look at how they deal with these issues.”
Council took a recorded vote on the issue with a 3-2 outcome in favour of deferring the request and hiring a consultant. “Someone from the outside may have a different look at the situation and be able to change things,” said Olender. “We may not need another person.” It was recommended that the position of tax collector would start at an hourly rate of $25.75 or $46,865.00 annually. Council decided to allow three weeks to hire a consultant before returning to the topic.
