WESTFIELD – The City Council’s Personnel Action Committee is revising the job description of the city treasurer’s position in anticipation of hiring a successor for Greg I. Kallfa, who plans to retire after 28 years of municipal service.
The PAC meet Wednesday with Kallfa and Steve Hagen, interim Human Resource assistant director to discuss updating the job description to reflect the current, and future, duties of that post.
At-large Councilor Brent B. Bean II, PAC chairman, said Thursday that the position has evolved extensively during Kallfa’s tenure in office.
“We haven’t touched (the job description) in years,” Bean said Thursday. “That’s why it was imperative for Greg and Steve to sit down with the committee to define what Greg does as treasurer.”
“Greg has been in that position for 28 years and gave us information on how the duties have morphed,” Bean said. “When he was first hired it was as both treasurer and collector, positions that have been separated.”
Bean said that the discussion between the PAC members, who also include At-large Councilor Brian Sullivan and Ward 3 Councilor Peter J. Miller Jr., and the two officials, focused on what the duties of the treasurer position should be as the city moves forward.
“We need a person to be the check and balance in the treasurer’s office, someone who is a big picture manager,” Bean said.
“We’re at the point where Steve will give us a document that reflects the changes we want made,” he said. “We made some changes to clean it up and to make it more clearly reflect what’s in the City Charter.
“I plan to distribute that to all of the council members next week for their comment so when we submit it at the (April 5) council meeting it will be a complete and updated document, including any amendments suggested by councilors.”
Bean said the PAC members also discussed the process for hiring a new treasurer. The council is the appointing authority for that position.
“We want to get a screening process in place to push qualified candidates to the PAC,” Bean said. “We’ll do interviews with the candidates and will report our findings to the full council” for the final appointment.
Bean said the timeline to hire a new treasurer is compressed for a number of reasons, including the fact that Hagen , who retired as the Human Resource director of the School Department, is planning to leave the interim position in mid-April.
The PAC plans to post the position within weeks of the council’s vote to approve the revised description, Bean said.
“We hope to have the new person in position by the end of August to work with Greg for a month or two so the transition is seamless,” he said.
The candidate hired will not only have to learn the duties of that position, but also the network of people across the state with whom he or she will interact as the city’s treasurer.
“It’s been a real asset to the committee to have Greg and Steve working with us on this,” Bean said.
