During a New Orleans city council meeting on Monday, New Orleans Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director Collin Arnold informed the council that one of his concerns is getting money to fill vacant positions.
“With the budget season coming up shortly," says Arnold. "We have been operating with three vacancies that I think are important and need to be filled. Just giving you a heads up, this budget season we’ll be pushing pretty hard to continue to make sure we get the funding we need to fill these positions.
“One of which is our volunteer coordinator," Arnold continues. "It’s budgeted, we have yet to be given approval to hire for that position, as we are approaching the middle of hurricane season, it’s creating a burden on the existing staff in our office to cover those vacancies.”
Arnold says the position is budgeted for and approved. However, he says it's a “Budgeted vacancy that I’m being told I can not fill.”
“Whose telling you that?” asked Councilman Eugene Green.
“The administration. I’m being told we have a hiring freeze," responds Arnold.
“Oh, come on…They’re telling you there’s a hiring freeze in the middle of hurricane season?” pressed Green.
“I need this position, and I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. But that’s where we’re at,” responded Arnold.
Arnold explains that the coordinator role is a $60k/year expense and has been vacant since the beginning of the year. He also states the hiring freeze came into effect a few months ago.
The job is currently listed on the Nola.gov website, the description is as follows:
“The New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (NOHSEP)/NOLA Ready is seeking qualified candidates for the full-time position of Emergency Volunteer Coordinator to effectively recruit, manage, and deploy skilled volunteers to provide support before, during, and after disaster. This unclassified position is open to the general public.”
Arnold continued, saying he desires to fill the roles to usher in a new wave of emergency management professionals for New Orleans in anticipation of eventual retirements or departures.
“We need to get some new folks to start learning from them (current staff), because people are going to start taking other opportunities,” explains Arnold to the city council.
“I want a new generation of emergency managers to learn from a team that has handled 25 declared disasters in the last 7 years, including a global pandemic, building collapses, hurricanes. I want them to be able to pass on that information before they move onto other opportunities.”