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The Freeborn County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday voted to hire South Central Service Cooperative of North Mankato to lead the search for the county’s new administrator. 

The commissioners are seeking a new administrator after the resignation of former Administrator Tom Jensen last month. Jan Fransen has been hired as an interim until a new permanent administrator is hired.

South Central Service Cooperative was one of three firms to present proposals for the search during the board’s workshop last week. Fees for the search through the cooperative were $11,150 and included all costs, except for travel costs for candidates. It also provides a two-year guarantee with no additional fees. 

Fransen said she checked some references for all three firms being considered after the workshop and found all favorable references.

Other firms being considered were DDA Human Resources Inc. and GovHR USA.

Fransen said though South Central Service Cooperative had not conducted a search for a county, it had conducted searches for several cities. 

Mike Humpal, manager of local government solutions with the South Central Service Cooperative, in the workshop said the cooperative does a lot of work with school districts, and its local government solutions division is relatively new after seeing a need for the service in the region.

He said while it will pick up candidates from all over, it will generally focus on Minnesota and the surrounding states of Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. 

It will meet with the county board and staff to create a profile for the position, as well as a set of goals, and create a search calendar and timeline. 

Then it will move forward with recruiting candidates and processing applications, paring down the applications to five who would all be guaranteed to have the skill set needed for the job. The board will interview four candidates, with one serving as a backup in the event one drops out.

Its selection process includes full applicant reviews, assessment of candidates for management and leadership, as well as backgrounds and reference checks. The cooperative provides preliminary and final screening and makes recommendations for the interview of candidates, assists with the interview process, meets with the board to facilitate their decision and develops a contract for the position as needed. He anticipated having someone in the position by mid- to late November.