(File photo/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

By Elliott Knopp

Executive Assistant

Meadow Lake to hire out-of-scope executive assistant

Jan 27, 2022 | 2:13 PM

The City of Meadow Lake has authorized the creation of an out-of-scope executive assistant position at city hall.

The position is said to provide relief to the current staff as duties have reportedly become increasingly difficult as provincial and federal governments are delegating more responsibilities to municipalities.

A job description attached to the official recommendation to council showed numerous tasks and responsibilities presently handled by other members of administration would be assigned to the executive assistant. With the current arrangement, a large portion of the duties are not assigned to any specific member of the city’s administration team.

“The duties of an executive assistant would be to perform a variety of highly responsible, confidential and complex administrative, secretarial, and executive support duties for the city manager, city clerk, city treasurer, mayor and city council members as well as to relieve management staff of clerical and administrative tasks and to do other work as require,” stated the recommendation filed by city clerk Ferne Hebig.

The executive assistant would also be expected to provide overall executive team coordination and corporate client service leadership for the city.

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“This differs from a clerk in that the duties require them to have considerable knowledge of the city’s services, other governmental services not necessarily related to the city’s functions, and frequent exposure to confidential information including fiscal, political and personnel matters having city-wide impact.”

The cost for this position is set at $55,000. After including benefits to the total cost, the city is expected to set aside just over $67,000 per year for the executive assistant. The spending was included in the 2022 operating budget, which was approved by council at the Jan. 24 meeting.

At the Jan. 10 meeting, Coun. Richard Levesque questioned whether the new addition to the city’s ranks was necessary and recommended the city hire a consultant to look into the current arrangement for areas of improvement.

City manager Diana Burton responded by saying the services could be costly, but suggested the move may also have its benefits depending on the result.

“I don’t know if it hurts to have somebody look at it, but when that’s been suggested in the past, it’s usually been that the price tag is too heavy to consider it,” she said.

The position has not been posted to the City of Meadow Lake careers page yet, and there hasn’t been an indication as to when the job posting will become available.

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elliott.knopp@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @ElliottKnopp