The Pulaski County Auditor’s Office may soon find itself painfully understaffed, according to Auditor Sheila Garling. Garling says that a vital deputy has announced her resignation, and she will need to find a replacement as soon as possible. Garling says it will cost $1500 for a new employee to receive training on their software systems, and on top of that, the office expects to have a difficult time getting by while that training is conducted.
The employee that is retiring was responsible for handling many of the time-consuming aspects of the auditor’s office, and now that the employee is retiring, Garling must find a way to cross-train her remaining three employees and pick up the slack herself for the time being.
“And all of this would have been less stressful if we would have had our four full-time deputies that could cross-train, but I didn’t have four full-time deputies,” said Garling.
As a result, Garling has requested the commissioners’ permission to work overtime to make up for the lack of labor, and has said that she will convert one of her part-time employees to a “contracted” employee, hire a replacement part-time employee, and an additional part-time deputy to replace the newly-contracted employee. This way, Garling says, it will not be considered a new hire.
The commissioners approved her request pending council approval.
