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Highlands Today

Commissioners Keep Division Directors, Change Hiring Policy

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: February 7, 2008

SEBRING — Highlands County commissioners didn't pull the plug on adding four new top administrators at a cost of over $600,000 per year.

But they did turn the process for choosing the new division directors upside down. Or, as Commissioner Don Bates put it, they flipped that process right side up.

Bottom line: the commissioners will interview the top three candidates themselves and decide who to hire as directors of public safety and public works, the two highest-profile divisions.

That replaces the process used to hire directors of two divisions, administrative services and community services, who were chosen by county Administrator Carl Cool and a citizens panel.

Commissioners then only had the chance to rubber stamp the choice of Cool and the review panel, or play the "spoil sport" and veto the appointment – after the person had told their employer they were leaving and made plans to move to Highlands County.

Colin Baenziger, the consultant hired to help find a successor to Cool, who retires June 30, agreed with the commissioners taking full control of hiring division directors.

The commissioners will take all of the criticism from the public if bad division directors are hired, Baenziger said, and so they should completely control all decision-making in hiring those people.

Getting blasted for a decision you made is acceptable in politics, he said, but getting blasted for a decision somebody else made would be intolerable.

Fisher's AppointmentWill Stand

Bates said he learned Citrus County Administrator June Fisher is being hired as the county's community services division director through a newspaper article. That article reported that Fisher, who has been commuting to Citrus County from Highlands County to work as county administrator there, was tentatively hired here and negotiations on her salary are under way

When people other than the county commissioners pick a division director and commissioners learn of the appointment from a newspaper, Bates said, that is "not the best and most prudent way" of hiring top-level managers.

Bates received unanimous support from the other four county commissioners in changing that hiring process.

Cool and a five- or six-member citizens committee will still interview a dozen or more of the finalists for the public safety and public service division director jobs. But they will no longer pick a winner, then negotiate that person's salary, and then present that person to the commissioners for final approval.

Instead, Cool and the citizens committee will choose three people as finalists. Those three, with no rankings, will then be interviewed by the county commissioners, who will make the hiring decision.

Each of the three finalists will have a one-hour interview, one-on-one, with each of the five commissioners. Then, all five commissioners will interview each of the three candidates, with the five commissioners talking jointly to each candidate one at a time.

Commissioners had the chance to revoke the tentative job offer made to Fisher.

"At this point, there's no (formal, final job) offer that's made to anyone," Cool said about Fisher's tentative hiring.

Commissioners, though, agreed to let Fisher's hiring stand. They will launch their new hiring process for the public safety and public works divisions.

Handley Backs Commissioners Taking Control

Ruth Handley, former superintendent of Highlands County Schools, called Bates' plan "an excellent idea."

Handley also advised commissioners to move slowly in hiring the next two division directors because, she said, the duties of all four division directors, and their relationships with the department heads under them, have not been clearly defined yet.

It would be "very wise," Handley told the commissioners Tuesday, "to slow down" the hiring schedule for the final two division directors, who are expected to earn salaries of $100,000 or more.

"She said it all," said Jack Richie, president of the Highlands County Homeowners Association, as he endorsed Handley's comments.

Mark Gose, the owner of M.E. Gose Construction, told commissioners they should wait to hire division directors until after the new administrator is on the job.

Gose likened the county's situation to firing a head football coach.

Teams in that position, Gose said, don't hire a new offensive coordinator, a new defensive coordinator and the next two most important assistant coaches, then hire a new head coach and tell him he has to live with a management team he had no part in choosing.

"The new administrator might not like who he gets" as division directors, Gose said.

Six-Month Probation

Commissioner Edgar Stokes said that potential problem is covered because the new division directors can be fired by the administrator for any reason, or for no reason at all, for the first six months of the new administrator's tenure.

Commissioner Barbara Stewart, though, said firing any government worker – let alone a top-paid manager just one step away from the county's top executive post – is easier said than done.

According to John Minor, the county's director of human resources, Foster will be able to apply for the county administrator's job after she starts work as a division director.

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