Pulaski County Building Inspector Doug Hoover is urging the county council to upgrade his assistant to full-time status. “We’ve got a person that deals with money, does everything with the computer, has got real estate license, got many different things, and you know what? The janitor that pushes a broom makes one dollar more than she does,” Hoover told council members during last week’s public hearing on the 2019 budget. “I’m not very pleased with that.”
Hoover said that he and part-time assistant Karla Kreamer have been dealing with several major building projects. He noted that as of the middle of last month, his department had already brought in $15,000 more in revenue than it did in all of last year.
At the same time, they’ve also been responding to a number of other issues. “Now with this wind power going out but we’re getting this solar coming in – and it’s going to be big, guys – we’re going to be doing a lot,” Hoover said. “We’re going to bring in a lot of revenue if we do it right. I think I need full-time help. Right now, I need it so bad.”
Council President Jay Sullivan said he didn’t want to make any decisions without the participation of the county commissioners. “I have talked to the commissioners a little bit about your situation,” he told Hoover. “I think we need to get a recommendation from the commissioners and an approval by the council both in a joint [session], to approve the hiring of a full-time individual for you. I don’t know how much your workload has increased. It sounds like it’s increased quite a bit.”
The request is expected to be brought up again during the next joint meeting on October 8, before the 2019 budget is officially adopted. During Monday’s plan commission meeting, members discussed attending the joint session with Hoover as a show of support.
