File photo by Terry Witt: County Coordinator Wilbur Dean got mostly good reviews from four of his county commission bosses but with suggestions for improvements in how he communicates.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
County Coordinator Wilbur Dean emerged from an October evaluation with a total score of 549 points out of a perfect 840 from four of his bosses, and with more than one county commissioner saying he needs to improve his communication skills and several saying he can’t do the job alone anymore.
The highest score, a near-perfect 200 out of 210, came from Commissioner Mike Joyner who like other board members believes Dean needs to have an additional administrative employee to assist him. The lowest score, 136, was given by Chairman Matt Brooks who works with Dean the most.
Commissioner Rock Meeks gave Dean a score of 147, noting as Brooks did, that communication is a key component of Dean’s job, while Commissioner John Meeks, the former chairman who had worked closely with Dean for more than four years, scored him at 177.
Commissioner Lilly Rooks refused to evaluate Dean. She said she prefers to deal with the county’s chief administrator face to face when she has a problem with him. She lets him know how she wants him to improve. But because her evaluations are private, the public never gets a chance to know what she said or how she feels about his overall work performance.
The commissioners who wrote comments on their evaluation forms commended Dean for his handling the COVID-19 emergency saying he responded well under pressure and remained calm and that he handled other unexpected events, such as the surprise resignation of the Building Official without problems.
Commissioner John Meeks provided no written comments and Joyner provided only sparse written comments. Joyner said the board needs to find a suitable assistant for Dean and complimented him on his ability to work with the needs of employees and the public during the pandemic.
Commissioners scored Dean with a point system ranging from 1 to 5. Commissioner John Meeks, Rock Meeks, and Joyner provided no mid-range scores of 2.5 or lower, but Brooks did give him 2.5 scores on Dean being respected in his management position, his capacity for innovation, his ability to anticipate problems and develop an effective approach to solving them, his willingness to provide accurate and comprehensive reports and whether he generally produces reports without being asked by the board.
Brooks’ lowest score on the evaluation, a rating of 2, related to the issue of whether Dean evaluates personnel periodically and points out staff weaknesses and strengths.
“Everyone’s going to have their own interactions with Wilbur. As the chairman, I’ve had a lot more interactions. I recognize that. I know it’s a difficult time for any one person to lead a small organization, much less an organization with 220-something employees. That’s not lost on me,” Brooks said in an interview. “But at the same time there were different things that popped up on us and I just felt like I’ve had some time to do some better analysis over the past few years in my first term (as a commissioner). We went from having a county coordinator and an assistant county coordinator to just one person (Dean). I think it’s going to be hard moving forward to be proactive with just one person.”
Dean was promoted from assistant county coordinator to county coordinator.
Brooks said Dean is doing what he can as a single administrator to carry out his job duties and he has great knowledge of county government and how it works.
“I just think he’s got communication issues he needs to clean up. He and I had a very good meeting after our (last) board meeting. I sat down with him and we spoke. It’s nothing we haven’t spoken about before. He has communication problems for whatever reason and anytime you’re not communicating with someone it leads to assumptions, so he agreed he needed to work on that and I think he took the constructive criticism well.”
Brooks, who requested the evaluations of his fellow commissioners, said he thinks he got feedback from everyone on the board but he would have preferred to have a little more written comment from board members. He said Rooks is her own commissioner and she didn’t want to turn in an evaluation. She prefers to evaluate Dean in person and talk to him as she sees fit.
“I just feel evaluations are a good communications tool and a good way to give Wilbur some positive stuff on what he’s doing. I had plenty of positive stuff to say about him. I also talked about some of the negatives. He’s got five bosses to answer to. I can’t imagine working under that stress,” Brooks said. “If he reacts and responds to every request of elected officials, sometimes elected officials tend to get involved in the day to day; I don’t think that’s our jobs. I think we were hired to deal with budgets and policies, ordinances, and legislative matters versus this road has a pothole in it and we need to call and get that fixed. I think the county’s done that for so long, that’s how the county operates. Just because that is how it has always been done doesn’t mean that’s how it should be done moving forward.”
When Dean was first hired as county coordinator, Brooks and Commissioner John Meeks voted against hiring him. They preferred not to promote from within but rather to advertise the position. Brooks said he’s not saying the vote would have turned out differently if they had considered other candidates for the position, but he prefers to look for talent, especially for the county’s top administrative position, rather than filling it internally.
“I wish we could have had one more vote but we didn’t,” he said.
Brooks said Dean loves his job.
“He was very frank with me. He said he wants to do a better job and there’s room for improvement. He does love the job at the end of the day. He’s never had anything negative toward me. He’s always ready to tackle issues. He meets things head-on. I appreciate that about him. I’d just like to see a little more horsepower behind planning and execution but you can only stretch one person so much,” Brooks said.
Commissioner Rock Meeks typed out a statement in his evaluation giving his overall assessment of Dean.
Meeks said with all the challenges of moving several county elective offices from the Levy County Courthouse to the Levy County Annex Building, dealing with the pandemic, handling engineering issues out of his control, and working on the county’s purchase of land for a lime rock pit, he said Dean has been diligent about getting the rock pit issue resolved.
“He never stopped working on this project during these trying times and encouraging staff to keep in contact with all the entities involved. To me, this shows dedication and commitment and this is just one element of his job duties. There is so much more such as an entire department that had to be dismantled and rebuilt, another department that kept changing department heads, annual financial responsibilities, contract negotiations, and the rehabbing of the old high school into the courthouse annex just to name a few; I am proud of what he accomplished this year.”
Meeks added, “Overall I believe Wilbur does a great job for Levy County. What areas need improvement? There are not 2 of him. I would like to see Wilbur continue to have contact with department heads and commissioners to keep operations moving smoothly. At the end of the day, communication is the key. Without it, we would all be in trouble.”
————-
Board of County Commission Meeting October 20, 2020; Posted November 15, 2020
