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Freeborn County’s candidate for a new administrator has declined the county’s offer, the interim administrator said Tuesday.

Under the board’s direction, interim County Administrator Darrell Pettis will reach back out to Melanie Aeschliman, current city manager in Blooming Prairie, to see if she would be willing to reconsider the opportunity if a counter offer was presented.

The board had been slated to vote Tuesday on the contract with Aeschliman, but the item was pulled from the agenda at the start of the meeting.

Fifth District Commissioner Nicole Eckstrom said she wished she knew more about what took place and asked if it was something that needed to be discussed at that time instead of putting off for another week.

“These are big decisions,” Eckstrom said. “We’re spending a lot of time and money and trying to get an applicant, and then when we get somebody who is qualified and we’re willing to make an offer to an applicant and then all of the sudden it’s dead in the water and the rest of the board doesn’t even know why or what the next step is.”

Board Chairman Brad Edwin said the county found out about Aeschliman’s decision on Monday. The action appeared to have been discussed with the personnel committee but not the entire board.

Pettis said the board could talk about generalities about candidates in an open session; otherwise, a closed session to talk about a specific individual would require publishing notice of a closed session.

Edwin said the contract the county offered was similar to what has been put forward to other administrators and that there was nothing out of the norm with what the county asked for in the contract. What Freeborn County had offered her has not been made public, but the salary range was posted at $122,000 to $171,000.

The Steele County Times reported in an article Jan. 30 that the city of Blooming Prairie had an emergency council meeting to counter Freeborn County’s offer and offer Aeschliman $150,000 effective March 2.

It stated she had until Tuesday to decide which offer to accept.

The board had interviewed four candidates and voted 4-1 to offer the position to Aeschliman, with Commissioner Chris Shoff being the lone dissenting vote.

Shoff said considering Blooming Prairie’s counter offer, he was not optimistic Aeschliman would reconsider.

In separate action, the board voted to appoint Pettis as interim supervisor of the Assessor’s Office.

The interim assessor with Houston County will still run day-to-day operations until a new assessor is hired.

Auditor-Treasurer Kelly Hendrickson had been supervising the department but said she wished to be replaced in that role, Pettis said.