The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is one step closer to reassuming the power to hire and fire county department heads.
On March 3, the board voted 3-2, with 4th District Supervisor Joni Gray and 5th District Supervisor Joe Centeno dissenting, to temporarily take back that duty from County Executive Officer Mike Brown. Brown has overseen the hiring and firing of county personnel since 2005.
In a recent interview with the Sun, 3rd District Supervisor Doreen Farr said the decision didn’t indicate performance issues with Brown.
“And it’s not a criticism in any way of the actions of the previous board,” she added.
In February, Farr and 2nd District Supervisor Janet Wolf recommended the board consider adopting an ordinance amending sections of county code that summarize the CEO’s duties and responsibilities. Specifically, the ordinance would alter code approved in 2005 that gives the CEO “full authority of the board to select, appoint, evaluate, suspend, terminate, and retain” department directors that aren’t elected officials.
“When the board makes changes like that, it sometimes takes time to determine if they are effective or if they have any unintended consequences,” Farr said.
“We now have the perspective on it … to realize that it’s not necessarily achieved the goal for which it was intended,” she said.
According to a letter to the board submitted by Farr and Wolf, the 2005 ordinance was meant to strengthen organizational effectiveness in county government.
The ordinance language, however, didn’t require the CEO to consult the board when handling personnel issues. That omission, Farr said, has caused communication problems and raised some public concerns about transparency in government.
“The public expects that elected officials are going to be held accountable,” Farr said, adding that the existing ordinance has created an “unintentional gap between responsibility and authority.”
Supervisor Gray, who’s been on the board since 1998, disagreed.
“I’ve been through both systems,” Gray told the Sun after the March 3 vote. “It just seemed to work better when the department heads viewed the CEO as their boss.”
Based on her experience, Gray said, the new ordinance creates a “spaghetti government as opposed to a free-flowing line” of communication. But she said having the board reconsider the issue each year is an added benefit.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a wreck,” she said. “I just like it better the other way.”
When asked about the board’s decision, CEO Brown said, “I have no comment other than we will execute the policy of the board faithfully.”
The board has scheduled a second reading of the new ordinance and a possible vote for its March 17 meeting.
For more information about the ordinance, visit countyofsb.org.
This article appears in Mar 12-19, 2009.