WESTFIELD – A dispute during the Westfield City Council’s Oct. 1 meeting over the job posting for the city’s personnel director resulted in the resignation of the Personnel Action Committee’s (PAC) chair.

During the meeting, the council had a lengthy discussion about the proper process of approving the personnel director job description after the description was posted before the council could approve it.

While Councilor Rick Sullivan said he would be in favor of approving the description to continue the job hiring process, he said City Hall did not do its job properly.

“The council has a role here and quite frankly it was totally ignored by City Hall in this process. I’m not going to vote no because we need to get a personnel director in here, but City Hall isn’t doing their job here, and quite frankly they are ignorant of the process or taking it for granted, either way it is wrong,” he said.

Councilor Dave Flaherty said that there may be a problem with the job description because of the turnover at that position in recent years.

“My problem with this one is that we’ve had four or five personnel directors since I’ve been on the council. Maybe it has something to do with the job description or the caliber of people we’re bringing in. This is one of the most important jobs in the city so why can’t we keep one? That is something we should be looking at before we jam through a job description,” he said.

If the council were to hold up the job description, Councilor Ralph Figy said, they would become part of the problem.

“We as a council decry the inefficiencies of City Hall and how things aren’t getting done, but when you don’t have people in the positions to get things done this is what happens. If we deny and delay this, we are becoming a part of the problem of the inefficiencies of City Hall,” he said.

Council President Brent Bean said that it was not the council’s fault that this process had to be held up.

“It’s not City Council’s problem that we are holding it up; this isn’t something that should be rushed. This is something the council is getting for immediate consideration, not because we sat on it for 30 days. The interviews should never have been set up and the posting should never happen. I think it’s our prerogative to do our due diligence,” he said.

To clarify some of the council’s questions, Mayor Don Humason jumped into the call to explain City Hall’s position in the process.

“The issue is because there was nobody in that position doing the job, we didn’t realize the job description hadn’t been brought to council to get approved. Subcommittees have already gone through and made recommendations and gave me the finalists to select,” he said.

As a result of the opposition to the job description and later opposition to the reappointment of part-time City Solicitor and Attorney John Garber, Councilor Cindy Harris said she would be stepping down as the Personnel Action Committee (PAC) chair and spoke against Flaherty’s opposition.

“It is not my decision to do this, I am relaying what they asked for. You’re costing our city lots and lots of money because this man needs to go into court and say he is employed by our city and he has open cases and he can’t do that, which may cost our city millions of dollars because of your opposition and you do not like the Law Department,” she said. “I step down and I am no longer the chair of the Personnel Action Committee.”

Ultimately, the council agreed to send the job description back to the PAC.

The council also conducted the final two interviews for the vacant auditor position with Michael Fitzsimmons and Vicki Moro before selecting Moro as the new city auditor. During the interviews, each candidate was asked the same seven questions.

Moro, the current town accountant in Southampton, explained her experience using various software systems.

“Currently in Southampton, I use Softwrite for our accounting software and for receipts from the treasurer/collector. When I worked in Holyoke, I did use Munice on the grant side so I was really involved with putting the budget in and doing the expense budget for the grant piece,” she said.

Moro added that her experience in a smaller community will translate directly into a bigger city.

“Being in a smaller community you do pretty much the entire job. You’re trying to interpret payroll, the hours that they’re working, you’re working on accounts receivable, accounts payable, and more. In my role now I do all of that as the only accountant that the town has,” she said.

She answered the final question by saying that she is easy to work with.

“I’m fun to work with, I like to joke around but I like to get the job done. My coworkers tell me I have a pretty good personality. I get along with most of the departments so I think I can bring some of that to the table for you,” she Moro said.

The council unanimously approved a motion to offer Moro the job.

The Westfield City Council next meets on Oct. 15.