Same man who replaced Wichita’s last HR director in Illinois will replace him again

The city of Wichita will replace its retired human resources director with the same man who replaced him in the top HR job in Champaign, Illinois, years ago.

Jason Hood, who has also served stints as the HR director of Decatur, Illinois, and Decatur Public Schools, and has private sector HR experience with Tyson Foods and Walmart, will start work in Wichita on Feb. 27. Chris Bezruki previously served nine years.

City Manager Robert Layton said 35 candidates applied for the position. Hood, who most recently ran his own HR consulting firm, was among three finalists.

“What I want Jason to focus on is making our HR department a 21st century HR department,” Layton told The Eagle, noting that recruitment and retention of city staff will be major priorities for the new director. There are 60 vacant positions on the police force alone, he said.

His starting salary will be $187,000. Bezruki’s salary at the time of his departure was $191,193, according to a city spokesperson.

Hood’s first job in Champaign was as community relations director, where he briefly overlapped with Bezruki before being promoted to HR director in 2014. He served in that position until 2018. Layton called it a “strange coincidence” that people shouldn’t read too much into.

“He had no connection to Chris and thinks very differently than Chris, so he’s his own person,” Layton said. “The only thing that was pertinent to us was the experience that he had and how he managed and created an HR department that reflected his values.”

Hood said that when he applied for the Wichita job, he had no idea Bezruki had been here.

“We were in different departments and he left about nine months after I started with the city of Champaign, so I don’t really know him well,” Hood told The Eagle. “I saw him a lot but we really didn’t interact that often.”

Bezruki’s last day with the city was on Dec. 10. City officials have maintained Bezruki’s departure was planned in advance and unrelated to allegations made by former Chief of Police Gordon Ramsay and his leadership team that Bezruki fostered an improper relationship with the local police union.

Layton, who Ramsay says conspired with Bezruki and the Fraternal Order of Police to undermine his leadership, has characterized the accusations as “outrageous.” An internal investigation into the HR director found no evidence that he accepted gifts from the union in exchange for favors.

“During Chris’s tenure, his experience with unions brought an improved process to our employee group negotiations,” Layton said of Bezruki’s legacy.

‘A really excellent fit’

Hood has cousins who live in Wichita, but he said an in-person job interview several weeks ago was his first time visiting the city. He said it was bigger and more interesting than he expected.

“It was the absolute opposite of what I thought Wichita was. I was so impressed,” Hood said. “The people are so nice and it was just a really great experience for me.”

City Council member Becky Tuttle sat in on finalist interviews. She said she left the meeting thinking Hood was the right person for the job.

“I remember walking out going, ‘I hope that Jason would give Wichita a try because I think it would be a really excellent fit,’” Tuttle said.

“He said ‘The human resources department sets the tone for the organization.’ And I thought wow, that’s a really good way to be a forward-leading HR department. It’s setting the tone of who we hire and how we work with our employees.”

Tuttle said she likes that Hood has both public and private sector HR experience, as well as experience working with unions, including a stint as senior director of labor relations for the Association of Union Constructors in Washington D.C.

“What really helped me in past positions is that by the time I got around to negotiating a contract, I had already developed the relationships with the individuals working in that union,” Hood said of his labor relations acumen.

He said his first order of business in Wichita will be assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the HR department.

“Once I’m there, I will develop a vision for the department and start tackling whatever challenges may exist,” Hood said.

He said authenticity is a core tenet of his leadership style.

“Especially when I’m starting a brand new position, my goal is to be authentic, to develop relationships within the organization — the city in which I’m working — and also to be transparent and consistent,” Hood said.