Asbestos advisory team struggles to fill job

The Libby Asbestos Superfund Advisory Team still struggles to fill a staff position that its local members assert should pay more than what the state is offering.

Two rounds of applicants have produced only one far-and-away preferred candidate, who seeks $10,000 more than the maximum $64,850 the job’s classification allows.

The five-person team, established last May in Senate Bill 315, provides oversight of the Libby Asbestos Superfund site as the Montana Department of Environmental Quality assumes management of the site by January 2020.

The staff position, called a liaison, is intended to coordinate among county, state and federal agencies and to report to the advisory team. Though Lincoln County is tasked with recruiting, the person will be an employee of the DEQ.

The preferred candidate, whose name has not been revealed, arose from the first round of about two dozen applications that resulted in three interviews.

Noah Pyle of the Asbestos Resource Program, among those screening applicants, described the preferred candidate at the July 11 County Commission meeting as someone who “currently works in and around the project” — experience that makes him especially desirable.

He would still be interested in the position if the pay could be increased, Pyle said.

The pay issue was raised at a meeting of the Advisory Team on June 28 in Libby. Tom Livers, DEQ director and Advisory Team chair, said he was hesitant to reclassify the job, or to make an exception, due to concern about other state employees doing comparable work for less money.

Commissioner Mark Peck, who also sits on the Advisory Team, has stated his belief that the job as intended doesn’t currently exist within the state’s classification system, and that it exceeds the expectations of its classification.

Livers, at the June 28 meeting, said the DEQ would look into the matter to see what it could do, while the team members from Lincoln County said they would proceed with re-advertising the job.

The new advertisements produced 12 applicants, including the two others who interviewed in the first round. However, Pyle said at the June 11 commission meeting that the screening team “all independently came to the same recommendation of not offering interviews to any of the applicants.”

Pyle also shared with the commission eight ideas the DEQ provided on how to proceed with filling the liaison position, none of which included changing the state’s classification of the job and five of which would require amending the original legislation.

The ideas, described by DEQ administrator Jenny Chambers as “brainstorming options” that “are not necessarily universally supported” and would require further discussion, include eliminating the job, not requiring it to be based in Libby, and making it a Lincoln County job paid through the cleanup trust fund.

The topic was on the commission agenda for discussion only, so no decisions were made.