Trinity County Grand Jury • 1999-2000

Finance and Administration Committee Final Report - General Review of County Government*

Published: April 13, 2000 8 pages
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Findings and Recommendations 5 findings

F1
Overall, the Grand Jury finds County government operations to be generally well run. Communication and coordination between department heads and throughout County government seems to be good. In most instances there appears to be good communication between Department Heads and the Board of Supervisors. In recent years the county has initiated monthly meetings of Department Heads, the CAO and the Chairperson of the Board of Supervisors, which seem to greatly foster the overall good quality of County government.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
The Grand Jury strongly encourages the continuation of the monthly meetings of the Department Heads, the CAO and the Board of Supervisor's representative. ì
F2
Most of those interviewed felt that the CAO position served an important function within the structure of County government. There appeared to be general support for the current CAO. There were general compliments of the CAO's abilities, particularly in team building and communication. A few of those interviewed felt that CAO position could be re-structured. However, there did not appear to be any clear consensus on how the position could be structured better in the future. Several of those interviewed felt that the position does not require a full time position and that some consolidation of duties with another position may be possible.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
The Grand Jury recommends that some attention be given to what the job description will be for a future CAO and how that position will be filled. The Grand Jury also recommends that solid administrative and leadership ability along with a working understanding of the operations of the major departments be a prerequisite for the CAO position.
F3
The County is presently developing plans to utilize the present Weaverville Airport site when it is moved. However, there appears to be no overall long-range vision of what should go there. Nor does there appear to be any attempt to insure architectural and operational consistency. Recently, informal meetings have begun to develop such a vision. These meetings include certain department heads and other personnel with expertise in planning issues.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
The Grand Jury strongly recommends that the airport site planning meetings continue on a regular basis and that an official Strategic Planning committee be formed. This committee should include appropriate Department Heads and departmental staff assistants along with a member of the Board of Supervisors. This committee should develop both short and long range plans for this site. It is recommended that basic site and planning guidelines be developed that include parking areas, landscape design and overall architectural consistency. As the development of the site and the plans for the future evolve, the plans should be updated to show significant changes as they occur.
F4
The minutes of the Board of Supervisor meetings are brief and only record motions, actions taken, votes and appearances of non-board members. For several years 1 the meetings have been recorded on videotape for rebroadcast on local cable TV. These videotapes are then saved for a few months and are available to the public through the County Library. After a few months these tapes are then reused.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
The Grand Jury recommends that the County adopt a policy to record all Board meetings and that the County Clerk be responsible for maintaining a permanent archive of the videotapes that would be accessible to the citizens of Trinity County. Only copies of the videotapes should be loaned out.
F5
In response to citizen complaints of abuse of power on the part of individual Board of Supervisors members, the Grand Jury investigated the oversight of selected county departments by the Board of Supervisors. The expertise in management of departmental operations, procedures, rules and regulations resides with the department heads and staff. The Board of Supervisors function is to collectively provide policy guidance, oversight and sometimes specific action. Individual Board members are not generally empowered to act unilaterally. The relationship between the Board of Supervisors and the county departments is typically complimentary and commendable. However, the Grand Jury did find some instances where requests for information and/or action from individual Board members were unreasonable. These instances were often indicative of a lack of knowledge of specific departmental functions and responsibilities rather than willful abuse of power.
Related Recommendations (1)
R5
The Grand Jury recognizes that the Board of Supervisors and other local governing boards have ultimate responsibility for local government operations. The Grand Jury also understands that Board members often get requests from constituents to act on their behalf. However, the Grand Jury recommends that board members make a conscious effort to avoid unnecessary involvement and detailed individual direction of activities that can and should be supervised and directed by department heads and lower level managers. Such action can also often demoralize or frustrate county employees unnecessarily. 30-DAY RESPONSE REQUESTED FROM: Trinity County Board of Supervisors, County Administrative Officer. CO W OFFICE OF THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR Human Resources Phone (530) 623-1325 Administration - ... Grant Management - Datu. P. O. Box 1613 Weaverville, CA 900. County Administrator Phone: (530) 623-1302 IN RESOURCES Phone (530) 623-1325 FAX (530) 623-422. JEANNIE NIX-TEMPLE, County Administrative Of To: Honorable John, K. Letton, Presiding Judge of Superior Court From Jeannie Nix-Temple, County Administrative Officer R COURT Date: May 5, 2000 RE: Response to Recommendations of 99/00 Grand Jury on General Review of County Government My response to the 99/00 Grand Jury on general review of county government is as follows: I would like to thank the grand jury for their investigation of our county government. There is a correction I would offer regarding the amount of the county budget for this fiscal year, which is 44.4 million dollars rather than the 32.7 million, stated in the report. Also we recently counted the county allocations for positions and the current employee count is 519 rather than the 470, stated in the report. We have grown.

No Responses Found 2

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Trinity County County
Trinity County Board of Supervisors Elected County Office

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.