Murrysville administrators look to bring next generation of municipal caretakers aboard

Murrysville’s top administrators are looking to put a transition team in place as both consider how they may spend their retirement in a few years.

Although no official retirement announcements were made, council approved job descriptions for an assistant administrator and assistant finance director, hiring a Franklin Regional graduate for the latter.

Council voted unanimously to bring Jacie Milchak aboard as assistant finance director. Milchak is an FR grad with a bachelor’s degree from Seton Hill University in accounting. She currently works as a senior accountant with the City of Greensburg.

Chief Administrator Jim Morrison said six months of salary for an assistant administrator have been built into next year’s budget“to begin learning the position of chief administrator,” he said.

The personnel moves were part of several items looking ahead to 2021:

• Heming adjusted the municipality’s salary ranges, which have not been changed since 2016.

“We realized it had been years since we made any adjustment to our salary ranges,” Heming said. “So I brought forward each year’s salary ranges to account for cost-of-living increases that occurred each year.”

• Council will hold a workshop and a public hearing on it 2021 budget at 7 p.m., Nov. 18 at the municipal building, 4100 Sardis Road. Meetings are also streamed live on Comcast local access Channel 19 and via Murrysville.com.

Heming also made some adjustments to this year’s budget, after getting a better sense of the full impact of the coronavirus shutdown. Despite having to make several changes, Heming said the budget remains balanced.

“We made demands of the staff to keep on top of their departments, and they responded very well,” Morrison said.

Heming agreed.

“They did an amazing job, in every department,” she said, “and I don’t think our services suffered.”