Belleville Council to review new posting for assistant city manager

At the end of a 90-minute special budget meeting on Monday, the Belleville City Council agreed to review an updated job description for a new administrative position at next Monday’s regular meeting.
Mayor Kerreen Conley and Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Marcotte agreed to negotiate a contract to be drawn up by the city’s labor attorney with Police Chief Dave Robinson for his new position as police chief/city manager. The council also wants to move forward on the job description for his assistant.
Chief Robinson would like to get the new position posted as soon as possible, so council members said they would get any suggestions for changes to the draft job description by Wednesday. Chief Robinson said he would work to get the final job description done so it could be in the council packet on Friday for review.
On Monday the council hopes to approve the description so it can be posted electronically as soon as possible.
The chief said the position will be open until it is filled. He said he plans to reach out with an email to those who applied for the vacant city manager position and ask them to complete a questionnaire to give those people the opportunity to apply for this position.
He said he will ask Mayor Kerreen Conley to help with her Human Resources tools to fine-tune the job description. Mayor Conley is employed as HR Director at Canton Township.
Monday’s session was the first council review of the proposed budget for 2021-22. Another budget review is set for April 26.
Chief Robinson, who is serving as acting city manager, presented the balanced budget he had prepared with the help of Kellee Howey and Brian Camiller of Plante Moran.
Camiller said the $384,000 in federal funds announced for the city of Belleville by the federal American Rescue Plan may be slightly reduced when it finally arrives. He said the original numbers for the state omitted villages so they will have to be included, and the numbers will change. He said he expects the number will be less and it will be split into two payments, one in a couple of weeks and the other next spring.
The budget has this money placed into the capital purchases fund because the timing of their receipt is unclear. Also, because of the uncertainty regarding marijuana revenue, none of that has been included in the new budget.
In the proposed budget, the capital purchases fund includes an estimate of $40,000 for a roof for city hall.
During discussion it was noted that Republic Services raised the rates to pick up trash by 2.5% as of Jan. 1 and now the raised rates to the city are higher than what the city charges residents for the service. It was agreed the raise will have to be passed on to residents.