County looks to fill job openings

By: Jim Mcnally | Mooresville Tribune
Published: July 07, 2010

This Sunday will be the first in which the Statesville and Harmony branches of the Iredell County Library will be closed due to a reduction in the work force.
But while Iredell leaders felt the cuts to the library staff were necessary to balance the budget — all 16 of the department's part-time workers were let go — the county recently announced the openings of about a half-dozen positions.
In total, there are currently 10 job postings on the county's website, ranging from department heads to office assistant.
Eight of the openings are in the Department of Social Services and they require education that ranges from high school diploma to a master's degree (preferred).
The new job openings come at an odd time in that one of the available positions is that of the head of the Human Resources Department, who is ultimately responsible for filling the posts.
Carolyn Harris was pulled out of retirement last week to take over as interim HR director. This move was made after the county's former HR head, Cynthia Eaves, accepted a similar job in Catawba County last month.
Harris was the county's HR director before Eaves took the job last summer.
In the 28 days that the HR job has been posted, it has attracted 47 applicants.
"But," Harris pointed out, "we don't know how many of them meet the minimum requirements. I'd be surprised if many of them didn't."
The only other opening that is not in the DSS is that of nutritionist for the Health Department.
Harris said the eight DSS jobs have, so far, made less of a stir than she would have guessed.
"When I was here before, we'd typically get a lot of applications every time we had a job opening," she said. "And I would expect it to pick up with these jobs."
Iredell County Finance Director Susan Blumenstein said most of the jobs now available were positions that should have been filled last year, but the county couldn't afford them.
She added, however, that the county couldn't hold off for another year without them.
"These are funded positions," she said. "And we feel they need to be filled this fiscal year."
Blumenstein was quick to emphasize that the posted jobs "are not new positions."
Indeed, she said, there are 18 net fewer positions being filled in fiscal year 2010-2011 than there were in 2009-2010.
When the available positions are filled, the county will have a total of 917 employees who work at least 50 percent time, Blumenstein said. But if not for the difficult economic conditions, the county would have 946 employees.
"This is all due to the economy," Blumenstein said.
The closing date for most of the county's job openings is next week.
For more information about them, go to the county's website — www.co.iredell.nc.us — and click on the "job openings" tab.

County looks to fill job openings

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