By Linda Cooper

County commissioners, city council members, and other elected officials represent the citizens. Staff such as planners, budget directors, IT professionals, and others, are the experts who make government run. Elected officials are responsible for setting the priorities for that local government, not staff.  Staff must have the know-how to make those priorities into realities but are not the final decision-makers/policy-makers.

The fact that the professional staff, unlike many elected officials, are not subject to term limits means that they have an institutional history, which is very beneficial in developing concrete plans to put policy decisions into practice. The word is developing, not implementing policy. Employees often have advanced degrees in management, engineering, finance, and other technical areas, a knowledge base they can bring to bear in devising solutions to local problems but not making policy.

The Board of County Commissioners should operate according to their organizational chart: staff reports to the county coordinator, the coordinator reports to the BoCC, and the BoCC works for and reports to the citizens. The county attorney and coordinator report directly to the BoCC.  The org chart hierarchy shows the BoCC hires and fires only the attorney and coordinator. It is a simple concept that works well if done properly, and all involved are held accountable. The BoCC makes policy decisions, it is the role of the manager/coordinator to see that they are carried out by staff. In theory, BoCC should have no role in staff personnel issues but they appear to want to pick and choose randomly what their role is as a commissioner.

Here’s where the waters get muddy, on Tuesday, November 7 at 1:30, the BoCC interviews candidates for the Construction/Maintenance Director position. Why is the BoCC involved when it is clearly a county coordinator and HR director’s job to handle the hiring of the maintenance director?  As indicated in the county org chart, Commissioners hire and fire only the attorney and the coordinator. The board must have three votes to fire the attorney or the coordinator. 

The board is interviewing the candidates for the maintenance director position. Will they hire, fire, and review this new employee during their probationary period? Will performance evaluations be completed by all commissioners or the coordinator? 

Note: There is a caveat in the BoCC hierarchy that is most times overlooked.  It is the manager title versus the county coordinator title that came to light in a recent meeting.  The county has no manager designation, only coordinator.  Ask your commissioner what is the difference, it is very interesting. In my opinion, it seems to allow them to operate in the gray.  The coordinator is supposed to hold staff accountable along with the HR director on the board’s behalf for implementing board policies and directives.  Do they? Does the BoCC lack faith in current management staff to do their jobs so they will continue to do the interviewing and hiring of directors?

Three commission seats are up for grabs in the 2024 election.  Is it time for a change?  Get involved, and run for office!

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Posted November 5, 2023