Council looks to reclassify city’s deputy attorney position
After a lengthy discussion that took many turns, the Cape Coral City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to reclassify a position to deputy city attorney and not create another full time position.
Mayor John Gunter pulled the consent agenda item, as City Attorney Dolores Menendez will be out on extended leave.
“I think one of the avenues to resolve that, so we have a point person in the city attorney’s office to run day to day operations,” he said is to have deputy city attorney. “One of the things we have to keep in mind is that the city attorney is a pretty important part of our hierarchy.”
Gunter said the city could either add an additional full-time employee position and have five assistants and one city attorney, or reclassify Assistant City Attorney Brian Bartos, as the deputy city attorney. He said that there is money in the FY23 budget for the city attorney’s office due to open positions they have had that would not be an additional impact on the budget.
Councilmember Bill Steinke said was in absolute support of changing the job classification rather than adding another full-time position.
“I would want to make sure we keep the pulse on the amount of work that is being handled there. The truth of it is we will have one person down until a city attorney is recruited and hired as our current attorney takes an extended leave. I am OK having a deputy. I think we should have a deputy,” Steinke said.
There was a great deal of conversation around a sliding pay scale of $138,000 to $230,000, with council members wanting to negotiate the salary range, which took shape at $171,000 after initially having a range between $138,000 to $180,000, before redirecting their thoughts to not include a salary range.
Bartos said by making a recommendation to the city attorney in regards to the salary, it could be a potential violation of the charter for the salary setting.
“I will do the job. I am doing the job now,” Bartos told the council members after a discussion that began at the beginning of the meeting and continued towards the end of the meeting. “$180,000, $171,000, I don’t care. I am only here nine more months. You can do a recommendation, but I don’t want you to get in trouble with the charter. Leave it up to Dolores and she will make the recommendation. I will talk to Dolores.”
Menendez and Bartos are each retiring.
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