County looks at leadership

Committee to explore administrator, executive, and coordinator options

Who should oversee the day to day operations in the county?

That question is at the heart of a new ad hoc committee that was formed to research and report back to the full county board regarding the options of hiring a formal county administrator, having an elected county executive or further empowering the existing administrative coordinator position.

On January 16, members of the newly formed committee met for the first time to lay out the groundwork for how they would proceed. While initially the timeline was to have a recommendation to bring back to the full county board by the April reorganization meeting, committee member Lorie Floyd questioned if this was practical given the amount of material they had to cover.

“I am afraid the April meeting might be pushing it. I don’t know that we need to push it that quickly,” she said.

Scott Mildbrand was serving as chair of the committee in place of county board chairman Jim Metz. He said it is a goal to keep in mind, but noted they could go beyond then depending on how often they met as a group.

The push to look at the leadership structure of the county came out of the county’s strategic plan process. Human Resources director/administrative coordinator Nicole Hager noted the goal from that plan was to look at ways to improve operational efficiencies over the next three to five years.

She noted that in December 2021, Carlson Dettmann had presented to the joint finance and personnel committee

See COUNTY on page 3 options on going to an administrator. At the time, the salary projected for that position was $128,448 per year before benefits with the average between $101,033 and $113,464 before benefits.

Mildbrand noted that in addition, they were told they would not be able to hire an administrator if they did not also have their own administrative assistant and office which added more expenses.

Hager noted that when she came on board in 2022, the county was in the midst of dealing with issues in the veterans service office and the lawyer working with the county recommended the county transition to an administrator form of government and presented information on training he did for the county board.

Mildbrand noted that in the time since then they have worked to empower the administrative coordinator to take more action on the county board’s behalf. A key difference between the administrator and administrative coordinator position is that an administrator has complete personnel authority including to discipline employees as well as other areas where they can act independently of the elected county board.

Currently Taylor County has an administrative coordinator that splits their time with another position. This is a common set-up especially in more rural counties. Administrative coordinators have limited independent authority other than what the county board grants them.

The most significant difference between the administrator and a county executive is that the county executive is elected to that position rather than being hired by the county board.

Committee member Bud Suckow also noted that they needed to streamline the county committee structure. “We have far more committees by far than other counties,” he said.

“We need to look at it,” Zenner said. “Whatever we do we need to do it right,” Suckow said. Committee members favored having representatives from the Wisconsin County’s Association and the UWExtension come to present at future meetings about the administrative options. Mildbrand said he would also like to talk with representatives from a county where they had an administrator and decided to get rid of it.

The committee will meet again February 7 following the forestry committee.