The county commissioners' move last week to change the title of chief of staff to county administrator would suggest that the board – a majority of whom won't be in office in just a few months – was a waste of time given that the new board could easily change things back or, for that matter, go in a completely different direction.
The commissioners said they wanted to eliminate the misconception that the chief of staff serves as a gatekeeper between department heads and the board. In some ways that is good, because department heads should never feel that they are not able to bring their concerns directly to the board. In other ways, however, having a filtering system is good because it avoids the issue of board members attempting to micromanage the operations of the county.
But the positives and negatives of the change are moot because at least three of the five current board members won't be in office at the end of the year, and the incoming board should be the one deciding on the structure of government during their term, just as this board did when it took office and made sweeping changes in some areas.
Perhaps the change in title was the extent of their thoughts on this issue. The position was left vacant with the departure of Steve Powell, and it should rightfully remain open until the new board is seated. Given that the incoming board could eliminate the position, realign government or drastically reduce the responsibilities associated with the job, potential candidates likely would be a little wary about trying get hired into a position where they find themselves out of a job in the matter of just a few short months.
Recall this board's foot-stomping when the previous board offered severance packages to some department heads just before leaving office. Part of the reasoning behind that, though, was the thought that the new board coming in might dismiss some of those employees.
Recall also the current board's penchant for secret hirings and controversies that erupted throughout their term. One instance was Commissioner Richard Rothschild convincing the board to hire his like-minded acquaintance as a PR hack to help promote some of his conspiracy theories. Another was the controversy surrounding Commissioner Robin Frazier's hiring of an assistant. Hopefully the board isn't planning on some sort of repeat in which it tries to place a friend or crony into a government job with little or no advertising or formal application process.
If they do, however, one of the first orders of business for the incoming board would have to be to remove the person and start again with an open process to fill the position. And given some of statements made by the candidates already in this campaign, most, if not all are against operating the office in this type of secret and questionable way and would likely move swiftly in that direction.
Voters have already decided that they want a change in how our county government operates. The current board should respect that, and respect the people who will be coming in to office, and leave staffing, hiring and government structure decisions alone until the new members decide how they want to structure things.
