Priorities for 2018

As promised, some discussion (a beginning, at least) of projects and directions that will be on the Board's agenda this year.

Certainly, the highest-profile issue on the agenda is the move toward professional management of County services. As I think I've noted before, Otsego County is the largest county in NY that does not have a County Manager or Executive (to be fair, Columbia County doesn't either, and it's almost exactly the same size). Over the years, more and more has been expected of counties by the state and federal bureaucracies, and nothing of note has been taken off of our plate. While it might have been possible for fourteen laymen to run Otsego County twenty years ago, it is less and less so as time goes on, and there is no evidence that this will change.

Professional management can take on any one of a number of formats. County Managers or Adminstrators are hired by the Board, usually for a specified term, and it is the Board that offers the opportunity for another term, or not. A County Executive is elected for a certain term in a county-wide election, and the voters determine whether another term is appropriate. Both forms of management have advocates in the County. I will dip into politics for just a moment to say that the leaders of the political party which represents the majority of voters supports, unsurprisingly, the County Executive model. I support the County Manager model, because I do want the Board to have clear oversight of the employee who will have day-to-day executive authority over all the workings of the County. And also because I am a member of the minority party.

Having a professional manager/executive/administrator at the top of the organizational chart will bring efficiency, an appropriate level of uniformity of function, and heightened transparency and communication to our very diverse set of functions and services. Simply said, it's crazy for a $110 million organization not to have a CEO.

Second on the list of 2018 goals, at least for me, will be a salary scale for Management and Confidential (M&C) employees, which pretty much means all non-union County employees. These are the department heads, and upper management and supervisors, for the most part, as well as a variety of professionals (Social Service attorneys, for instance). We finally got a raise for them in 2018 – the second in ten years – but it's for one year, and there is still no comprehensive, perpetual salary scale for determining reasonable increases for this important part of our County. We have serious problems with retention and promotion (promotion from a union position to an M&C position often does not include a meaningful wage hike) because of this.

I'll chair the committee (Performance Review and Goal Setting) that will address a salary study and scale, with the goal of having it in place by the time the 2019 budget is approved in December. This is an important goal for anyone who puts value on the quality of work done by County departments, rather than valuing the minimum output for the lowest cost.

2018

 Well, a lot has happened.

As you know, there is new leadership on the County Board for the first time in six years. Dave Bliss, from Middlefield, is now the Chair, and I am the Vice-Chair (which means only that I sit in the Chair when Dave can't be there).

If you're reading this blog, you probably know this, but humor me for a moment. In Europe (and probably in other places), countries often have many political parties on the nationial level – many more than the two which we have in the US - and so it is often the case that no political party wins a majority of the seats in the legislature. In this case, in order to govern (in other words, in order to pass legislation with a majority of votes), parties have to work together. Two or more parties end up coming to a set of agreements on policies and progress toward goals. This is known as a coalition government. Leadership in these countries has to focus on collaboration, compromise and diplomacy (which is necessary to keep the coalition together and functioning).

In most legislatures in America, there are two parties and one has the majority, and therefore governs. No compromise is necessary. But parties often have factions, which disagree about important issues, and therefore some initiatives need to be bipartisan. But for the most part, the majority rules.

This has been the case forever in Otsego County, until now. Republicans have maintained the majority on the County Board, for pretty much always. And that is true for 2018, as well – the Board is split 7-7, but the Republicans hold a slim weighted vote advantage.

However, the Board Republicans have split into two factions, for a number of reasons, and seem to be functioning as two different parties. After working closely with all the current Republicans for the last two years, it seemed that, from our standpoint, one faction was more progressive, and more aligned with our approach to County business, than the other. So the seven Democrats on the 2018 Board have allied with the faction headed by new Chair Dave Bliss, and have formed a coalition government.

As noted above, it will take compromise, collaboration and diplomacy to allow the coalition to work efficiently and maintain progress toward goals. So far, so good. Stay tuned. I'll talk more about specific projects and directions in future posts.