Fleming Town Council addresses staffing turnover, hires to keep services running

Fleming moved to keep daily town services covered after accepting two resignations and approving multiple hires at the April 14 Town Council meeting at Fleming Town Hall. The council unanimously approved the agenda, then added a temporary water operator item, a sign that water service and other basic operations were already under pressure as the town managed staffing changes.

Mayor Stefan Betley presided over the 6:30 p.m. meeting, with Bill Langridge, Milinda Hickey, Scott Walker, Josh Wernsman, Kamie Lambrecht and Bonnie Jackson present. Also in attendance were Scott Szabo, Jacob Helgoth, Joelle Gapter, Keith Beck, Lewis Frank and Michelle Asfeld. The town’s hiring push was broader than one vacancy. Around the meeting, Fleming was advertising a full-time Town Maintenance Superintendent/Ordinance Officer, a part-time Seasonal Groundskeeper and a part-time Road Grader Operator expected to work about 20 hours a month.

That staffing picture matters in a town where one employee can end up carrying several jobs at once. Earlier in the year, Maintenance Superintendent Jacob Helgoth reported high winds had caused a power outage at the substation south of town, crews had cleared a sewer line clog and repaired the pumping station at the sewer pond, and gravel work had been completed in the Wild Horse Ridge addition. Those are the kinds of day-to-day responsibilities that affect residents directly, from water and sewer reliability to the condition of streets and drainage.

The turnover also came after a series of operational alerts that showed how tightly linked town staffing and infrastructure had become. On April 6, the town acknowledged that a planned power outage lasted hours longer than expected and said residents had faced unexpected inconvenience. Around the same period, Fleming posted a request for bids for a new 12-foot by 12-foot well house after the previous structure was lost, adding another utility project to the town’s workload.

The council had already been working through the transition. At its Feb. 10 meeting, members approved hiring Milinda Hickey as community center custodian after interviewing three candidates, and they discussed hiring a part-time road grader operator because longtime Maintenance Superintendent Keith Beck was expected to retire at the end of March. In March, the council entered executive session to discuss a personnel matter. Taken together, the meetings show Fleming working through a broader turnover in real time, with the priority on keeping water, maintenance, street work and ordinance duties covered without interruption.