by James Jordan, Sumner Newscow — After another 30-minute executive session Monday evening, the Wellington City Council has still not named an interim city manager to replace Roy Eckert, who was fired recently. Yesterday evening was a work session so a vote would have been impossible anyway.

Last week. after the regular meeting the council talked about naming an interim for 15 minutes, but then adjourned and decided to try again Monday. There is the possibility the council will not have an interim director.

Before going into executive session Monday councilman Vince Wetta asked two city department heads, Shane Shields and Jason Newberry, what their thoughts were on having an interim manager. Those two would be prime candidates to be in that position, and at least one may apply for the city manager job.

Both said they said they believed someone should be appointed as the interim.

Newberry said he and Shields had talked about the situation, and they both plan to do their jobs regardless of who is selected as the interim.

Shields said it would not be a problem to do his current job of finance director and be the interim city manager at the same time which he did in 2014 the last time the city was in this position.

Currently, Newberry is running the day-to-day operations and Shields is taking care of the financial aspects. Newberry said it would be good to have someone in charge for things that come up from time to time.

Also, at the work session Monday, the city council heard from Anna-Marie Keena with the Kansas State League of Municipalities, who told the council her organization has a program to help cities find a city manager.

At a cost of just over $5,000, the league could do the recruiting and initial screening, and help the city through the process.

She said the city would still set the time line and criteria.

She said the league would review all the applicants and would pick the top ones for the city to consider, and the city could choose the last few finalists from there. Council members would still have access to all the resumes submitted.

The cost for the service would be $5,280, which she said was a discounted rate since the city is a member.

She would give each council member a survey to fill out to find out exactly what they want, and she would compile that information and use that in the search.

She recommended using Skype for the first interview before finalists are chosen to bring in for personal interviews.

Keena said the process usually takes about three months, but the city could set any time line it likes. She said she is not a headhunter, but would market the city to potential candidates.

The last time the city did this was 2014 and they had 54 initial applicants.

The agreement would be a year long contract, so if the council did not find a candidate it liked among the initial candidates, it could begin again.

She said it would take some the load off the staff, and council members, by taking care of the marketing and initial screening.

She said Wellington would be attractive to someone wanting to build their career. Since it offers a lot of services, it would be a place that would give a city manager a lot of good experience.

They could also involve other people in the secondary interviews, and let the public meet the finalists if they chose to.

The council also heard a preliminary report on the budget for the coming year. They will have to have the budget done by August 1, to meet legal deadlines.

The council will have a special work session on the budget at 5:30 p.m. June 27.

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