Things may soon be a bit less stressful in the Pulaski County Auditor’s Office, thanks to a motion passed by the county commissioners to hire an additional full-time employee. Auditor Sheila Garling told the commissioners that she is dealing with the equivalent of a staffing nightmare as one full-time employee is on medical leave until January, another full-time employee is transferring offices at the beginning of the year, and another full-time employee resigned on Friday.
Fortunately, she said that she does have a replacement for the resigning employee, but until then, she is down to three part-time employees. One part-time employee is assisting her with deeds until the employee on medical leave returns, leaving only two part-time employees to handle the hustle and bustle of what the Pulaski County Commissioners called, “the busiest office in the courthouse.”
Garling pointed out that one of the reasons she is losing employees is because of how stressful the job is. Her office is extremely busy, and the state keeps piling additional responsibilities on the auditor’s office. Normally her office is staffed with three full-time employees and two part-time employees, but Garling requested that the commissioners allow her to add another full-time employee.
Garling said that right now, she has no employee to “fall back on.” No employees have free time to focus on answering phones or assisting customers because every employee has a specific duty to handle. She said that this culminated into a huge complication a few weeks ago when the office needed to file 18 deeds in three days, and the person that handles the deeds is the one currently on medical leave. As a result, a full-time person had to assist the part-time employees with the deed work, piling more responsibility on other employees.
The commissioners approved her request, pending council approval, to hire a fourth full-time employee.
