Henderson leadership turnover creates challenges, opportunities

By Jeremy Twitchell

Friday, July 3, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

There’s been an election, a messy divorce and a Godfather-like buyout offer that proved too good for more than 100 Henderson employees to refuse.

For various reasons, dozens of longtime, high-ranking city of Henderson employees have left in recent months, at a time the city is facing some of the most significant challenges in its history as falling revenues have necessitated $60 million in budget cuts over the last year.

Their departures raise the question of how well Henderson can assimilate replacements and replace their experience, with the specter of possible additional cuts still lingering.

Some of the changes were inevitable.

Term limits meant the city would at least have a new mayor and one council member. And Andy Hafen’s election as mayor means the council will have to appoint a second new face to fill Hafen’s unexpired term.

Other changes were voluntary on the city’s part.

Council members unanimously voted to fire City Manager Mary Kay Peck in April, saying she mismanaged the city’s finances and created a “culture of fear” among city employees.

The buyouts were voluntary as well, but are a double-edged sword. Though they are projected to save as much as $20 million in the next four years, they deprive the city of some of its most experienced employees.

Lee Bernick, chair of UNLV’s Public Administration Department and a specialist in municipal governance, said the turnover, while difficult, can also create opportunity as Henderson is forced to re-engineer its operations.

“I think it’s not inherently bad,” he said. “I think that budget crunches, on one hand, are a problem, but on the other hand, they create an opportunity to find new ways of doing things.”

Giving the remaining employees the chance to move up the ladder or take on new tasks in their current positions can have the effect of reinvigorating them, Bernick said.

“After you do the same job for five to eight years, everything starts to look the same,” he said. “Even when the emergencies come up, you tend to say, “Oh, I’ve dealt with this emergency before.’”

And while former and current city leaders will admit that it’s a daunting task to deal with so much turnover when there is so much work to be done, they say those who are stepping into new roles are able to handle them.

“I think you always are concerned when you have retirements of very talented people,” former Mayor James B. Gibson said prior to his departure from office. “But we do have a very deep bench at the city.”

Former Councilman Jack Clark said employees who are leaving have set the bar high for their successors, whose challenge will be to not only live up to those expectations but exceed them.

Clark said he was concerned about the turnover, “but the other side of that is there’s a natural order of things. We have some really good people who have been waiting in the wings for a long time and chomping at the bit for their opportunity. I hate to see these people go, but in reality, how long do I want them to stay?”

Acting Human Resources Director Fred Horvath said the city has a policy of succession planning within each department.

Employees who want to move up in their department undergo an intensive, nine-month leadership course that Horvath equates to college-level work. After they are promoted, they are assigned a mentor to help them transition into their new role.

“I’m confident that we have people in place to step into these jobs, and we’ve done a great job training them,” Horvath said.

But even with the succession planning, Horvath said, implementing so many plans at once creates challenges. The sheer number of changes can make employees lose focus and fear for their position, he said. It requires supervisors to pay extra close attention to morale, he said.

As the economy begins to rebound, Horvath said, department heads and the City Council will discuss staffing levels and try to find a balance between refilling the ranks and maintaining a lean operation.

“It will be a very structured process that will look at why you need people back,” he said. “It won’t be a case of, “Boy, look at the consolidated tax revenue. Now we can fill these positions.’”

Bernick said that in all the changes it makes, Henderson needs to be careful to keep a healthy contingent of experienced employees on board who have the institutional memory to handle recurring challenges and emergencies.

While some may view the election of Hafen, a 22-year city councilman, as a missed opportunity for change at the city, Bernick said he sees Hafen’s election as a source of needed stability.

“If you think there needs to be a lot of change in the city, then it’s a missed opportunity,” he said. “If you think the city works OK, by and large, then it can be a good thing to have some experience in that office.”

Ultimately, Bernick said, the only measure of how all the changes affect Henderson will be time.

“I might say a year from now that these people are all crazy and it was a mistake, but I don’t think it is inherently problematic to have some turnover,” he said.