Supes consider merging three departments, but not a ‘super bureaucracy'

Suppose they combined three separate county departments into one entity and called it the Community Development Agency. That is just what El Dorado County Supervisors, on Oct. 31, voted unanimously to “consider.”

Recommended by the Chief Administrative Office, Interim Transportation Director Kim Kerr presented a proposal that would join Development Services, Environmental Management and the Department of Transportation in a multi-functional county agency with a sum larger than its parts.

Based on an Organizational Review completed in December 2011, staff was tasked with creating a leaner but more coordinated system to serve the public in all the areas covered now by three relatively independent departments.
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Supervisors approved the recommended annual base salaries for the three new positions. The Director would start at $157,800; Assistant Director, $137,220; and Assistant Director for Administration and Finance, $130,686. All are based on Step 5 of the county’s salary scale. Kerr explained that “the positions would be funded by a combination of General Funds, fees and various Federal, State and grant funds.”

The salary recommendations are similar to the county’s Health and Human Services Agency, and Kerr pointed out to the board that “Initially, this is not a cost savings plan. We’ve already cut all the way to the bone, and eventually money will be saved through attrition.”

Later, Kerr and CAO Terri Daly assured supervisor Norma Santiago that in Santiago’s words, “we aren’t talking about layoffs here, but we also aren’t talking about creating a new, super bureaucracy. I want to make sure we’re clear on the purpose.”

“The point is to provide better service from Building C. There are no implied layoffs. Our staff have gone through a lot in the last few years,” Daly ... http://www.mtdemocrat.com/news/supes-consider-creation-of-one-stop-super...