The city of Magnolia will begin searching for an in-house city engineer after City Council approved a proposal from Strategic Government Resources for executive recruitment services at its March 14 meeting.

“This is basically a recruitment firm,” Mayor Todd Kana said during discussion of the proposal. “We haven’t had much luck in filling our city engineer spot. And again, this is in no way a person or situation that’s going to replace what AEI [Engineering] does.”

The cost for the executive recruitment services is not to exceed $24,900, which does not include ad placement costs, according to the proposal included in the March 14 agenda packet.

City Administrator Don Doering said some of the tasks the in-house city engineer will do will include reviewing plans, supervising construction and inspections.

“A lot of cities have a city engineer that reviews plans like Don stated, but whenever we have plant designs or major street designs or road construction, we usually hire an outside firm to do that,” City Attorney Leonard Schneider said during discussion.

Kana said the city approved and budgeted for this position two years ago.

“The way I look at it is your city engineer will take care of all the little stuff we’re taking care of right now that you really don’t need us to be taking care of if he’s there,” said City Engineer Mike Kurzy, who works for the city through AEI Engineering. “If he’s not there, we still have to take care of it.”

View the proposal from Strategic Government Resources below.