At its Feb. 10 meeting, the Oberlin City Council discussed plans to hire an outside firm to lead the search for a new city manager. The city manager acts as the administrative head of the City and is responsible for coordinating the work of all the City’s departments and employees and carrying out all policies made by the City Council. They report directly to the Council as an appointee.
To conduct the recruitment search, the Council decided to contract Raftelis, a company based out of Cincinnati. The Council meeting was preceded by a meeting of the Council’s City Manager Search Implementation Committee Feb. 4, where members narrowed down the bids submitted by companies to send to the full Council. Since former City Manager Rob Hillard stepped down in May 2024, the position has been filled by City Law Director Jon Clark, who took on the duties of interim city manager in addition to his existing role as law director.
In their proposal, the firm said that it expected the search to take around four months. The total fixed fee that it laid out was $37,300, as well as an estimated range of $2,000–$2,500 in advertising costs, $175–$500 in background checks, and travel expenses for the final candidates to Oberlin, to be paid directly by the City.
According to Councilmember Kristin Peterson, the City has hired outside firms to lead such searches in the past.
The Council decided to put out requests for proposals in July 2024 and received 19 submissions from various companies. They did not consider two submissions made after the deadline. Prior to Tuesday’s Council meeting, the Committee narrowed down the list to three firms: Pracademic Partners, PRADCO, and Raftelis. The winner was decided through a ranked-choice ballot, and Raftelis was selected unanimously.
Council Vice President and Recruiting Committee Member Michael McFarlin described the criteria that the councilmembers were evaluating the candidates on.
“Some of the discussions were looking at cost,” McFarlin said. “We were looking at similar experience[s] [that] the firms had in recruiting these sorts of executive positions in municipalities or in the public sector. We were looking at their process and method. We were looking for things that were a good mix of analysis plus a personal touch. We were looking for things like guarantees. What can they give us to show that they did their due diligence?”
Raftelis’ existing database of candidates, as well as prior searches for the City of Oberlin, garnered support from the Council. In their proposal, the company said that it has aided in city manager searches for the City of Westerville, the City of Tipp, and the City of Grand Junction, CO. They also included a list of other searches they have done around the country for various municipalities.
As for their plan for the recruitment, the firm stated in the pitch that their first order of business would be to meet with City officials and develop an understanding of the kind of person needed by the City. They then plan to develop a position profile for the job posting and prepare first-year goals for what a new city manager should do.
After this, Raftelis plans to conduct an initial screening of the candidates and narrow the pool of applicants, with the finalists coming to the City of Oberlin for in-person interviews and discussions with City officials.
Raftelis has sent over an initial work agreement to the City, which will first be reviewed by the recruitment committee before going to the full Council — which will have to approve the final agreement.
