Pulaski County Council Denies Additional Staffing For Auditor

The Pulaski County Auditor’s Office isn’t getting any additional help any time soon, as the county council this week denied a request from Auditor Shelia Garling to hire an additional full-time employee.

Garling said her request was denied because the county council felt the office did not need any additional staffing, despite the auditor’s office being down one full-time employee. Fortunately, she said things should change at the start of the new year, when she expects to have three full-time employees and two part-time employees.

Garling made the request for the additional employee to the county commissioners last week. She said that right now, she has no employee to fall back on – that is, no employees have free time to focus on answering phones or assisting customers because every employee has a specific duty to handle. She said that this culminated into a huge complication a few weeks ago when the office needed to file 18 deeds in three days, and the person that handles the deeds is currently on medical leave. As a result, a full-time person had to assist the part-time employees with the deed work, piling more responsibility on other employees.

The commissioners approved her request pending council approval; however, the council ultimately denied her request for the additional employee.