More than a year after dismissing the last one, Lac La Biche County has appointed a permanent chief administrative officer.
More than a year after dismissing the last one, Lac La Biche County has appointed a permanent chief administrative officer.
Shadia Amblie, who’ s occupied the position on an interim basis since the spring of 2014, was named CAO in a special County Council meeting today.
“This is a great opportunity and I’ m excited to be working with such a great and diverse senior management team. We have some great plans ahead,” Amblie said following her appointment.
Prior to becoming CAO, Amblie was the municipality’ s communications manager and general spokesperson. A graduate of Portage College and Athabasca University, with certifications in business administration and human resources and labour relations, she has been working for the County since 2009.
The County started the search for a new CAO in February 2014, after former CAO Roy Brideau was fired. The only official reason given for his dismissal was “a change in leadership being required.” Brideau was fired without cause, resulting in a $215,000 severance payout.
A CAO recruitment committee was formed soon after, with a budget of almost $80,000. Meanwhile, two senior managers, Jeff Lawrence and Nancy Broadbent, jointly covered the CAO’ s duties until Broadbent resigned and Lawrence stepped down to resume his regular duties later in the spring.
Amblie sat in the CAO’ s chair from then on while the hiring process continued.
“We had over 60 applicants-and they were good applicants,” said Mayor Omer Moghrabi. “We narrowed it down, we short-listed. It was a good competition.”
Moghrabi says that, as time went on, councillors recognized Amblie’ s home-field advantage.
“At the end of the day, we felt we wanted someone that knew the area, that was knowledgeable to the people and was committed to Lac La Biche County as a whole,” he said.
In total, the municipality was without a permanent CAO for one year, five months and three days. Despite Amblie’ s qualifications, she wasn’ t immediately appointed because “it was the wish of Council that we have an open competition and a due process,” the mayor says.
The CAO is Council’ s sole employee. As an administrative leader, the CAO is supposed to act as a bridge between councillors and County employees. The position is required in every municipality in Alberta.
According to Alberta Municipal Affairs, “The CAO serves as the link between council, which sets policy, and administration, which implements policy. The CAO is expected to understand the direction of council and ensure that programs and services are delivered following council’ s mandate. The responsibilities of a CAO require a high level of professional expertise, education, specific training and relevant work experience.”
Now that she’ s the official CAO, Amblie says she’ s looking forward to getting the County’ s administrative house in order.
“The first thing I want to do is appoint my senior management team,” she said. “Secondly, we want to take a look at the organizational structure, see where there’ s some gaps and see where there’ s some redundancies and try to streamline the organization so that we’ re more efficient and more accountable to taxpayers.”
A senior management team should be finalized in the weeks ahead.
