The procedure being set to select a permanent director for La Salle County's new Information Technology department may serve as a model for hiring all county department heads in the future.

Last month, authority on selecting an IT director was claimed by two County Board committees and Board Chairman Jerry Hicks, D-Marseilles, subject to ratification by the full County Board.

Friday morning, with Hicks present, the IT Committee came up with a procedure that Hicks said would be considered by the Legislation and Rules Committee for use on hiring all department heads.

The committee proposed that hiring be handled by an ad hoc committee composed of Hicks; Board Vice Chairman Tom Ganiere, D-Ottawa; the Finance and Fees Committee chairman — which currently is Ganiere; IT Committee Chairman Steve Abel, D-Mendota; and Salary and Union Committee Chairman Joe Savitch, D-La Salle. Because Ganiere fills two slots, a fifth committee member would be selected, most likely from the IT committee.

Additionally, in this case, the ad hoc committee also is to include a person versed in computer operations as a non-voting sixth member of the committee.

The IT committee members discussed the contents for the job posting, which they expect to have completed for their meeting in January. The job description is to be posted to the county's Web site, with advertisements for it run in local and Chicago newspapers, as well as in government and professional publications.

An application cutoff of mid-February and a hiring a few months later is anticipated.

In another matter, IT department member Bob Latty used a laptop computer to project on the meeting room wall a sample of the revised county Web page he is creating.

The design will allow quicker navigation and replaces side menus with pull-down windows.

Committee members praised the home page's cleaner design clear of all the links that had accumulated on the present design. The committee voted that any request for a home page link would first have to be reviewed by the committee.