OK, I'm Back

And all of a sudden, it seems, there's a lot going on in County politics.

To start with, after years of being on four Committees and a Board, this year I'm on seven. And a Board. Here they are:

• Human Services (chair)
• Health and Education
• Solid Waste and Environmental Concerns (SWEC)
• Performance Review and Goal Setting (PRGS)
• Administration
• Strategic Plan Implementation
• Budget
• Community Services Board

I certainly can't complain about the added workload, because I've wanted to be on Admin and Budget for years – they are where the sausage is made, the sausage in this case being policy, procedure, permission and, of course, the budget.

With the invaluable help of County Attorney Ellen Coccoma and Commissioner of Social Services Eve Bouboulis, I've already been able to get Admin to end a hiring freeze, and allow Department Heads to fill vacant and funded and budgeted in about half the time it has taken in the past. The freeze was enacted in October of 2015 when there was some threat, real or imagined, regarding the ability of the County to pay its bills until the end of the year. As often happens when 14 laymen run a county with no CEO, the freeze process – all hiring requires parent committee, Admin and full Board approval – became the status quo. It could take two months before a Department Head could even begin the hiring process. Now all that is needed is parent committee approval (with signoff from the Treasurer and Personnel Director). This makes a world of difference to large departments with expensive turnover issues, like the Social Services.

Another pretty big deal is the County Strategic Plan, which has taken forever for our consultants to complete, and seems to me to be a little thrown-together and copy-pasted. Then it took forever to create and empower an implementation committee. But that's been done, and I'm on it. Looking forward to that.

More to come soon.