Troy Schulte must wait a week to learn whether he’ll get new Jackson County job
The decision on whether to hire Kansas City Manager Troy Schulte to fill a similar role in Jackson County government will have to wait a week.
County legislators delayed the appointment at Monday’s meeting over concerns that his duties as the county’s chief administrative officer were not spelled out in detail in his proposed employment contract.
“The contract is obviously not finished,” legislator Ron Finley said in summing up issues that he and several of his colleagues raised. “This is just not ready.”
But legislators seem ready to hire Schulte as soon as those details are worked out.
County Executive Frank White asked Schulte to work for the county after Schulte announced in September that he would not seek an extension to his contract with the city. It expires Feb. 29.
If hired, Schulte would fill a newly created position responsible for running county government under the direction of White and with some oversight from the legislature.
Previously, White had two top deputies in chief administrative officer Ed Stoll and chief operating officer Gary Panthiere. But with Panthiere’s recent retirement and the resignation of another top aide, chief of health services Jaime Masters, White seized on Schulte’s availability to reorganize his staff.
Several members of the legislature have said Schulte’s 10 years of experience running a much-larger city government would be an asset to a county government that has many challenges ahead of it and whose legislative and executive branches often clash.
“Here, it’s kind of dysfunctional,” legislator Dan Tarwater told Schulte Monday during what amounted to a nearly hour-long public job interview at the tail end of the legislature’s regularly weekly meeting. Tarwater said Schulte’s professionalism would be “a unifying force.”
But Finley and some others were not ready to approve the proposed two-year employment that would make Schulte by far the highest paid county employee in history without having more information.
What would he do to earn his $220,000 annual salary? Legislators Jeanie Lauer and Jalen Anderson said they were troubled that there was no detailed job description. What would the organizational chart look like with him as White’s first officer?
White’s chief of staff, Caleb Clifford, promised to have both documents drafted in the next couple of days so that the legislature can decide whether to approve the contract next Monday.
White could have decided to appoint Schulte without legislative approval, but Schulte said he would not have wanted the job under those circumstances.
“In my conversations with the county executive, I wanted to make sure it was a collaborative decision.” Schulte told reporters after the meeting.
Two weeks ago, he met privately with legislators for nearly an hour and says he’s fine waiting another week to learn whether he will get the job, if that extra time makes legislators feel more comfortable putting him on the payroll.
“We’ve got all the time in the world,” he said.
Chairwoman Theresa Galvin is among those who would like to see Schulte on board sooner rather than later as the legislature gets ready to approve the county’s 2020 budget over the next few weeks.
Schulte said that if he retires from the city ahead of schedule, an acting city manager will fill that job until a permanent replacement can be found. Schulte was acting city manager for 18 months before he got the job on a permanent basis.
Mayor Quinton Lucas signaled Monday that Schulte’s temporary replacement might not be in limbo that long. Lucas said he has formed a search committee to work with the headhunter who has been hired to find job candidates. In addition to Lucas, the members of the committee are Schulte, Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McManus and Madeleine McDonough, who is a managing partner at the law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP.
