One of the volunteers who served on a citizen committee searching for a new Trumbull County Human Resources director on Wednesday offered his services to commissioners as an interim HR director.
At the end of the regular meeting, Charles Lightner, a man who has 45 years of experience in human resources working for two Fortune 500 companies and running his own company, gave commissioners some advice about how to break the deadlock and hire someone to replace former director Richard Jackson, who resigned his post in February.
Now, about nine months later, commissioners remain far apart on the hiring decision.
Lightner said the committee of eight was tasked to find finalists for the job and went through more than 150 applicants. They turned over the names of four candidates, but for one reason or the other, all have either refused to accept the job or have moved on.
Commissioner Frank Fuda had been critical of fellow Commissioner Niki Frenchko for her failure to interview some candidates. However, Frenchko said some qualified candidates have backed away because of salary or demand for relocation packages.
Lightner told the board that no qualified person is going to work as a county HR director because of all the discord going on in the county office. He said most of the candidates were turned off by all this conflict.
“Your system is broken and until you fix it you are never going to attract the most qualified candidates,” Lightner said.
Lightner said a solution to help fix the problem would be to hire an interim HR director. After being offered the job by Fuda and talking with his wife, Lightner said he would be up for the job on a temporary basis of three to four months.
He said he has high standards and he doesn’t want the public to think that he joined this committee so he could eventually be named to the job. Lightner said he would want it arranged so “he could leave the job at any time, and he could be terminated at the wish of commissioners.”
Lightner said eventually he could take on the task of recruiting his successor.
“I would want to have the authority to do that,” Lightner said.
Frenchko, however, took exception to that request and also disputed the fact that all the HR candidates have gone away.
“I have one who still wants the job,” Frenchko said, but Fuda and Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa both said that candidate did not come highly recommended.
After the meeting, Frenchko told the newspaper her candidate was a Rootstown resident who had experience as an HR manager at an electronics firm and another company in Tennessee. She said she would like to see this man come before commissioners to make a presentation similar to Lightner’s.
Lightner’s presentation also led to more open squabbling between Fuda and Frenchko.
Frenchko told Fuda that he had only talked to that man from Rootstown for 10 minutes and became disinterested when the man asked if commissioners had employees undergo performance reviews.
Fuda accused Frenchko of wanting to hire someone “whom she could control,” while Frenchko told Fuda he just wants to leave a legacy since he is leaving office in two months.
“I’m just doing my job,” Fuda said.
Commissioners did not act on hiring Lightner, but Frenchko said after the meeting that she “would never vote to hire” him.
She said it may be better to wait on hiring someone when commissioner-elect Denny Malloy takes office at the beginning of 2023.
Cantalamessa said waiting any longer to hire someone would not be a good idea because the county is currently in contract negotiations with employee unions.
He said it may be time to consider hiring Lightner on a temporary basis.
“I think with contract negotiations coming up with the OPBA, he could be a valuable, albeit temporary resource to the county,” Cantalamessa said.
