By Nelson Rios

Having worked for twenty years in a county manager based system in the Mid-Atlantic region, I was well positioned to observe the structure and function of such a governing arrangement. I worked in the office of the county manager, and served three such managers during my tenure. Furthermore, I interacted with several neighboring local governments also functioning under a county manager/county administrator arrangement (whichever term used was merely semantic – – both such positions, as well as city manager/city administrator, were organized in essentially the same manner).

Suffice it to say that, under the new charter, San Juan County government may have been loosely organized as a county council with a county administrator. It never installed, however, the mechanisms, linkages, definitions and roles that evidence a county administrator operation, much less instilled the attitudinal changes necessary among staff, elected officials and the public.

Accordingly, it comes as no surprise that the Charter Review Committee now wants to revert to a system wherein elected officials also discharge administrative responsibilities. It is natural to return to something familiar, even if the familiar is fraught with conflict of interests and other political and operational problems.

In essence, governance with a division of legislative and executive responsibilities should include:

  • A representative governing body, duly elected by the citizens it serves, and directly responsible to those citizens; its role is to govern through a legislative process;
  • A chief administrative executive, hired by the governing body and directly responsible to its elected officials; her/his role is to implement and administer the policies and initiatives promulgated by the governing body
  • Directors of major functional areas, or departments, directly responsible to, and only to, the chief administrative executive; their role is to assist and support the chief administrative executive to discharge her/his responsibilities;
  • Additional function-based departmental staff with no more than three levels of supervision, all ultimately responsible to their departmental directors;
  • And, perhaps most important, an abiding view by each level of the governing structure that the public is the customer and is to be treated accordingly – – and that customer service must be evident in all that is done in the name of the public.

Merely calling County government an Administrator style of government, and even developing the structure for such type of government, is wholly inadequate and doomed to fail. Key aspects to a successful conversion to this “new” form of operating include buy-in by all stakeholders, agreement on definitions and roles, firm adherence to the chain of responsibility (similar to the one detailed above), clear accountability within the system, and transparency of governance to the public. This path is not easy nor short, but necessary and very much worth the effort.

Unless a conversion process is wholly engaged, a county administrator form of government will continue to have problems and fail to meet its operational potential. And reverting to the previous system will be even more problematic for all involved, particularly the public it intends to serve.

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