The Orion Township offices will be revising a contract with their human resources provider in an attempt to save money.
During the Orion Township Board of Trustees meeting on Jan. 18, the board unanimously approved the renewal and revision of the township’s contract with HR service provider YourSource.
Orion Township Treasurer Alice Young said the decrease in hours was possible because of the work YourSource had done since 2009 when they were originally contracted.
‘When they were first hired, there were certain projects that needed to be done like creating a handbook for employees,? said Young. ‘Now that those basic duties are finished, we felt it was a good time to cut their hours, mostly to stay within the $50,000 budget we have for their contract.
‘It took us a while to get there with them, but they agreed to the lower hours.?
Young added that YourSource’s services were initially sought out because the township had had no dedicated HR staff. To compensate, a number of employees already working at the township offices took on the human resource responsibilities.
Because of this, the HR process had a tendency to become disjointed and ineffective.
Orion Township Supervisor Matthew Gibb mentioned that in addition to the effectiveness of hiring ‘out of house,? the cut hours would make the cost of contracting HR services lower in comparison to other townships.
‘We do not have anyone in-house with the expertise or knowledge to do this job as effectively as we would like,? said Gibb. ‘It’s more advantageous for us to contract out of house where, while we’re assigned one person for continuity concerns, we can draw from the expertise of the entire firm if needed.
‘Also, $50,000 is actually pretty low. I know Independence Township pays around $90,000 for their HR services.?
After hearing comments from the board and the public, including Trustee Neal Porter’s praise of the work already done by Yoursource, the contract was scheduled to be renewed and effective on Feb. 1.