By Jim Newell
Review Editor
The Orion Township Board of Trustees voted unanimously during its April 15 meeting to hire Ashley Coyle as the township’s new budget and procurement director.
The township created the position, a fulltime, non-union, salaried position with a starting salary of $75,000 per year plus benefits.
Coyle will likely start May 6, said township Supervisor Chris Barnett.
“It is a new position that we’ve created here. It’s a need that we’ve identified, so I’m really excited about having this position filled and having Ashley join our team,” he said.
The budget and procurement director will develop the township’s annual budget and Capital Improvement Plan and perform a variety of complex financial analyses and reporting, including short-and long-term budgetary projections.
Coyle will also analyze the utility billing processes, develop and implement all procurement policies and procedures and other duties relating to purchasing and budget forecasting, according to the position job description.
After two rounds of interviewing candidates, the township’s hiring committee unanimously recommended Coyle to the board for approval.
The committee included Human Resources Generalist Allison Tierney, Clerk Penny Shults, Treasurer Donni Steele, Barnett and Chief Assistant Samantha Timko. An auditor from Plante Moran, the township’s contracted auditing firm, sat in on the interviews to ask financial questions, Barnett said.
“It was a great process. I was glad that we were able to interview. Thank you, Ashley, I’m looking forward to working with you. This is a new position for the township and I agree, it’s something that’s going to help every department head and the township to be able to focus on some of those requirements that we need,” said Shults.
Trustee John Steimel questioned the need for the position.
“I’m not necessarily that thrilled about the position. I’m still confused. It seems like some of these tasks are tasks that we assign to other positions and haven’t really kind of taken full boat, but whatever,” he said. “So, that’s gone and past, though. So now I’m going to support this – you went out and did it. I still was questioning whether the position is really needed and well-defined, as far as some of the other positions we have that supposedly handle some of the same stuff.”
“I will tell you that we did have a very lengthy discussion before we approved the position, and the job description was discussed with the union employees and some of the people that have maybe similar duties,” Barnett said. “Ultimately, we came up with a job description that was approved by this board, that was agreed to by the union that wasn’t taking duties from anyone else that currently works here.”
At the Dec. 17, 2018 meeting, the Board authorized Human Resources to create a job description and conduct a salary survey for a Senior Budget Analyst. That position was upgraded to a director-level position in February after the township’s Human Resources Department conducted a needs assessment and determined that there was a need for the position.
“My opinion is we’ve needed this job position for far too long. As a trustee, we have a fiduciary responsibility of ‘Show me the money.’ We have department heads who present us an annual budget – they don’t have the expertise to project these costs and these projects out 5-10-15 years,” said Trustee Mike Flood.
“We have a lot of money in this township that we have, like the safety paths, we have projects in the safety paths that are still five years on the books. No one can track that. We need this expertise to show us where on the timelines where our budget is at.”
“One more thing: union employees do not need to be representing the township, a resident, at contract time showing where the money’s at. That’s the township’s responsibility and we have to protect the township taxpayer on that. That’s where I’m coming from on this, I think we’re going to get a lot of bang for our buck. I guarantee one thing: she’s going to keep busy because I’m going to be hounding her, no matter who’s in that position. I want to see the facts and data so I can make good decisions when it comes time to spending taxpayers’ dollars,” Flood said.