Forgive staff members at North Battleford City Hall if they look a little more harried and stressed-out than usual - and it's not just due to Christmas shopping.
It's because most of them have had a juggling act on their hands, having to handle extra work due to a staffing crunch in the senior ranks of administration.
The City is recruiting for three vacant positions: parks and recreation director, finance director and, the most senior one of them all, the city manager.
The current city manager, Jim Toye, is in his final month in that position in North Battleford. His last day is Dec. 31, and just a few days later he begins work in the same role in Prince Albert.
The City has been interviewing candidates to fill the role of finance director to replace Matthew Hartney, who left in early September for Huntsville, Ont.
The search to fill those two roles has been ongoing for some time, but at the Dec. 9 council meeting came news the City will need to start recruiting for another vacancy with the departure of Parks and Recreation Director Keith Anderson, a 25-year city employee who is retiring from his position.
It has already proven to be a change-filled year at City Hall. Jennifer Niesink is still getting used to her new role as director of business development after taking over in November a position held by Denis Lavertu until this past summer.
Also this year, Albert Headrick took over as fire chief, filling a role that was vacant for several months following the departure of Pat MacIsaac to Okotoks, Alta.
The wave of recent departures has thrown a noticeable wrench into the activities at City Hall at a time when two major documents are before council for consideration.
One is the official community plan, which comes back for further discussion and second and third reading in January after a few weeks of feedback from stakeholders.
The other major item is the 2014 draft budget, which was presented last Monday with no finance director in place.
Usually it is the finance director who delivers the budget document to council.
This time it fell upon Toye to make that presentation. Toye acknowledged the hard work of the management team in putting the budget together.
"We had great support from the senior administration team," Toye told reporters. He highlighted the work of Gail Adams, Kalina Xu and Arthur Smith, who checked and double-checked the numbers and put the document together.
Passing a budget without a finance director is not unusual to North Battleford in recent years. Immediately after finance director Byron Tumbach delivered the 2012 budget to council in December of 2011, he left to become chief administrative officer in Lumsden. By the time the 2012 budget went to council for final debate and vote, Tumbach was already gone.
City director of human resources Susan Degenstein has been authorized to assume the city manager's spending authority in the amount of $50,000 as of Jan. 1.
That spending authority will be on an interim basis until a new finance director and a new city manager are hired.
In speaking to directors at the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce Dec. 10, Councillor Ryan Bater acknowledged the situation the City is dealing with. On top of all that is the holiday season.
"It's a pretty busy time, especially considering we are recruiting a city manager which is the most key position in our administration," said Bater, who acknowledged the departure of Anderson as well as the finance director vacancy.
"It's an interesting time at City Hall, that's for sure," Bater said. "We're trying to get a lot done with what we have."
