The impending retirement of Cook County Personnel Director and County Board Secretary Janet Simonen has propelled the county board into considering the possibility of creating an administrative position that could oversee all departments within the county. On April 15, 2013, the board and department heads met with three county administrators – Timothy Houle of Crow Wing County (pop. 62,500) and Brian Bensen of Sherburne County (pop. 88,499) in person and Trish Klein of Itasca County (pop. 42,763) on speakerphone.
A county administrator would be in charge of managing the county budget and would have supervisory responsibility over non-elected department heads. A county coordinator would not have supervisory responsibility over department heads.
Information assembled by Janet Simonen showed that nine out of 18 counties with populations under 10,000 had either an administrator or a coordinator, but only two of the eight counties with populations under 6,000 had them. Cook County’s population is 5,176. At least 70 out of 86 of the state’s counties have either an administrator or a coordinator (the information was missing information on one county).
Commissioner Bruce Martinson asked the three administrators their opinion of the administrative needs of a county like Cook County, which has about 110 employees. Trish Klein recommended a full-time human resources director. “It really is a fulltime job,” she said. Janet Simonen splits her time between board secretary and personnel duties.
Brian Bensen agreed. He oversees about 600 employees in Sherburne County, and their human resources director is Roxanne Casper, who was the personnel director at Cook County before Janet Simonen.
Cook County resident Pat Campanaro said that hiring an administrator to handle day-to-day operations would free the board to focus on bigger issues such as economic development that would add to the quality of life in Cook County.
Making it work
Timothy Houle said an administrator must work well with employees and be able to engage in “open, honest, and direct dialogue.” An administrator cannot motivate people by simply using his or her authority, although that authority is needed about 5 percent of the time.
Trish Klein was a county coordinator in another county before becoming Itasca County’s first administrator. She said she faced some opposition when she first started, partly because of lack of clarity about roles. She said she and all the department heads meet together once a month. Hearing what other departments need helps department heads think of the whole picture when considering requests for their individual departments.
Commissioner Sue Hakes asked how the administrators work with elected officials. Brian Bensen said that sometimes the lack of authority is an issue but most of the time, he works with the elected officials in much the same way he works with appointed department heads.
Timothy Houle said that since a county administrator has no authority over elected officials, he uses diplomacy, relationship, and persuasion at all times with them, skills he uses with employees 95 percent of the time when he doesn’t need to use authority to get things done.
Houle said he thinks of a county as a “holding company” with 15 or 16 different businesses under it. County departments compete for limited resources, and they need to all be “singing off the same sheet of music,” he said.
Trish Klein said she and the people under her all work well together, whether elected or appointed, and her elected officials even ask her to do performance reviews on them.
An administrative position will be successful if the administrator is perceived as taking the staff and board where they want to go, Houle said. He recommended that the board have an annual retreat where they set goals.
Someone wondered if a board retreat would be open to the public. It would be. “You’ve got to get comfortable doing this stuff in a fishbowl,” Timothy Houle said. “You’ve got to get comfortable living, working, and breathing in this fishbowl.”
What an administrator adds
A high-quality organization is created from a sense of vision, a sense of mission, and a set of values, Timothy Houle said. Having policies and strategies in place at the top trickles down and affects how smaller decisions are made.
Houle said the board must set the tone of respect for the whole organization. They must be able to disagree without being disagreeable.
Trish Klein said she spends quite a bit of time helping commissioners develop their skills and learn how to work together even when they don’t agree. “You’re not elected to all vote the same,” she said.
Brian Bensen said he tries to get the county board to stay at the “10,000- foot” level. He noted that the dynamics of the board change completely every time a new board member comes on.
How could an administrator or coordinator create efficiency and eliminate overlapping areas of responsibility, Commissioner Garry Gamble wondered. Timothy Houle responded by saying that if you can’t find someone who saves the county more than the cost of their own salary, you have the wrong person in the job.
Trish Klein agreed, saying an administrator can find ways to give a county the best bang for its buck, creating “large-scale efficiency that is tangible.”
Commissioner Sue Hakes said they have had unusual things going on – the 1 percent projects, broadband installation, economic development projects, the courthouse shooting—and Janet Simonen has already been acting in the role of a coordinator with these issues.
Remarks from department heads
Commissioner Martinson asked department heads for their thoughts.
County Attorney Tim Scannell said he thought any reluctance to put an administrator in place in Cook County would come more from the county board than from the staff.
“Clearly we’re about as lean as you could possibly get, if you look at it carefully,” Scannell said. They need the board to move away from micromanaging, he said. Moving to an administrator position would be a huge transition for the community, however, and an administrator could get “electrocuted” in the middle of the staff and the board.
Highway Engineer David Betts said he did not think an administrative role could be added to the responsibilities Janet Simonen has been carrying as personnel director and board secretary.
Community Center/Extension Director Diane Booth said it is difficult when you think you’re moving in a certain direction with a board and then have an election and find that you’re going in a different direction.
“We need to realize that democracy is a really, really messy business,” said Timothy Houle. He said he will “pivot” with a board—helping board members do what they want to do— unless it is “illegal, immoral, or unethical.” He said he doesn’t have to like the direction the board wants to go, but he needs to respect it.
Affording an administrator
Commissioner Jan Hall said they need to look at whether they can afford to have an administrator.
They need to look at whether they can afford not to, Trish Klein said. She said that in two years, she has probably saved the county 20 years worth of her salary because they started going out for bids on jobs.
Cook County is similar to a corporation with a $17 million-a-year budget, Timothy Houle said, and there’s no way a business of that size would not have some sort of chief executive officer. He stated that more and more counties are moving toward hiring administrators or coordinators.
Leave a Reply