Lewistown, IL – Fulton County placed its first advertisements seeking a County Manager over the weekend and is already getting applicants.
Board Chairman Ed Ketcham says the board decided several years ago to create the position, but never funded it until last month.
The board funded the position at up to $66,000 per year plus benefits.
Ketcham says having a manager should allow the county to do long-range planning and more closely monitor its operations.
He says the county is becoming a big business with more than $21 million dollars in assets scattered at 19 different locations.
He says that's too large a business to run by committee.
He says the manager will be responsible to the board only for those departments the county controls directly. These include the highway department and the supervisor of assessments.
Ketcham believes it will be more efficient for staff members to have a single person to go to for questions who is at work daily. He says currently, the only person to see for guidance is the part-time county board chairman.