Job description leads to lively talk

Alexis Barker
NLJ Reporter
 
“First of all, this has been completely blown out of proportion,” said Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock, during a March 5 discussion about the administrative assistant job description, at the Weston County commissioners meeting. “Your job was never in question. You said you were overwhelmed, and I came across things in your description that is supposed to be under our (the clerk’s) office. It was blown out of proportion by Tony (Barton).” 
Hadlock was referring to a discussion with Chairman Tony Barton the previous day over whether a change can be made in a job description by someone not in the same department. According to the discussion, Hadlock had removed items from the administrative assistant job description, currently held by Brooke Weigel, that Hadlock believed were jobs that  fell to her office. 
“To clear the air, what I was not trying to do was blow it out of proportion. I was trying to make it clear that one person in one office shouldn’t change the job in another department,” Barton said. “I stand by it; it is not the clerk’s job to change it.” 
Hadlock said that she was not changing Weigel’s job and was attempting to return some duties to the county clerk’s office. 
According to Commissioner Marty Ertman, Weigel’s position did not have an approved job description, so she was unsure what document Hadlock had been changing. Road and Bridge Supervisor Rick Williams, who is also one of Weigel’s direct supervisors, said that he was operating off a job description that was signed by him and he assumed the county had done the same. 
“I have an issue with the previous clerk doing that (changing the job description) without the direction of the commissioners,” Commissioner Nathan Todd said. “It appears to me, and I have no background in what happened in the past, she (Hadlock) was looking at things she (former County Clerk Jill Sellers) didn’t want to deal with and allowing the administrative assistant to handle those. If the current clerk is wanting to take those under her wing, it behooves us to do it.” 
Weigel said that Sellers did not create her job description and that it was taken from another county. Williams, former County Attorney William Curley and others then reviewed it. 
“I am going to go back to — I am not sure it was a change, if we haven’t approved a job description,” Ertman said. “To insinuate someone changed it … who determines what that change was?”
The commission discussed, at the suggestion of Barton, that a group of individuals, including one commissioner, meet to see if anything in the job description Williams is operating under needs to be changed before the description is brought to the board. Barton noted that he believes it should be primarily up to Williams because he is the administrative assistant’s direct supervisor. 
“I agree with being absent an administrator, it falls with Road and Bridge primarily,” Todd said. “It is a completely new ball game than three months ago.” 
Weigel stated that she is frustrated with the situation because she was “not hired just to do Road and Bridge.” Weigel said that she wants to know what the board wants. 
Commissioner Tracy Hunt said that if the county were to make an organizational chart, Weigel would be under Williams but that when he doesn’t need her, she spills over and does tasks for the commissioners. 
“I don’t know why it has to be so complicated. She has been working on a cost analysis for the county annex. Could we direct the clerk to do that? She could tell us to pound sand, and we would like to have that information,” Hunt said. “I see no problem with how it has been.” 
He noted that starting anew, Weigel could work primarily for Williams but also be assigned other duties by the commissioners. 
“I am not sure why that would be a problem,” Hunt said. 
“I would agree with that. I think in some areas we have to tread carefully with the clerk’s office so we don’t overstep our place,” Todd said. 
Commissioner Ed Wagoner said that the direction from the commissioners should come from meetings where the entire commission is present and included in the decision making and directions. 
Todd asked about the possibility of Weigel and Hadlock finding cohesion working
together. As for the job description, Hunt will work with Williams and adjust it as the commissioners see fit.