As the town’s consulting contract with budget and finance officer Theresa Morley begins to wind down, the municipality will be will soon be looking to fill a new full-time position in the finance department.

At the April 21 council meeting, councillor Bill Beatty again questioned the logic of spending so much on consulting fees for a part-time budget officer, when the same amount could be used toward a full-time position that would better serve the municipality.

“It’s not a question of the money budgeted, it’s more a question of how this money’s used,” he said during budget deliberations at the last council meeting. “We were told that this would be a cost-saving feature by having a part-time consultant in. Apparently we didn’t need a full time financial person five days a week. I think that’s probably shown to have been false.”

Finance committee chair Chris Zanetti replied to Beatty that because former director of corporate services Libby Boucher left her post just before the 2008 budget process was to begin, “we had to act fast” and so Morley was hired on to work on a part-time consulting basis until June.

“We’ve now had a review done of the finance department and clerk’s department and because there is not too much in succession planning for our existing staff, we are going to go out as soon as possible for that (new finance) position,” said Zanetti.

When Beatty repeated that, at the expiration of Morley’s contract, a full-time employee should be hired, councillor Mike Greaves stated that in fact council had passed the report from the review of the finance and clerks department, where it stated that a new position must be filled.

“I think it was a very prudent move, that, with the departure of our financial officer and our budget coming up, not to hire a full time long-term employee at that time because we didn’t know what we wanted to do,” said Greaves.

“We knew we wanted to review all of our departments, so it was prudent to hire on a contract basis without having to make a long-term commitment to someone to guide us through the budget process.”

Director of corporate services and interim CAO team member Denise Corry told the Forester that funds have been put in the budget to hire a full-time employee in the finance department, but nothing else about the position has been decided at this point.

“A job description had to be drafted up and we have to get approval to proceed with posting that ad,” she said, adding that the job description and posting will come to the next finance committee meeting on May 15 for approval.