Minutes 05-24-2018 Budget Work Session

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22 information with a presentation at a Board meeting, an Information Item included on a regular meeting agenda, and/or via email. Members of the Board may also individually, or in conjunction with other members of the Board, be in contact with County staff outside of Board meetings and make requests to staff for information, reports to be developed, letters to be written, etc. Staff members move forward to address those requests and subsequently report back to the Board member(s) with conclusions, outcomes, or other information. Staff sharing the results sometimes occurs with a presentation at a Board meeting, an Information Item including on a regular meeting agenda, and/or via email. It also sometimes occurs only with the individual Board member or those members who joined in the request. In both instances above, the petitions and requests have an impact on staff responsibilities, priorities, and time. To address this concern, the Board of Commissioners adopted the attached “Guidelines for Commissioner Requests for Information from County Staff” in 2002. The Guidelines provide a framework to assess requests and a review process, especially as it relates to established priorities and duties and the staff time required to address a request. The process entails the Manager and the Board Chair reviewing the request and addressing any concerns identified. This item gives the Board the opportunity to discuss the Board’s process for addressing petitions made by Board members at regular meetings and requests that individual Board members may make to staff for reports, research data and/or information outside of regular Board meetings. The Board likely also needs to review the attached Guidelines for any updates or revisions. Chair Dorosin said he petitioned for this item, as he had some questions. He used Commissioner McKee as an example, since Commissioner McKee had asked if staff would look at other locations for a detention center, and how much staff time would be needed to do so. Chair Dorosin referred to a policy that addressed this issue, which was adopted in 2002, and provided delineation between less than 2 hours worth of work, and more than 2 hours worth of work. He asked if there is a formula for determining how long work will take. Bonnie Hammersley said if there is a request that is going to take a lot of time, then a department head will contact her to discuss it further, but that has not happened since she has been employed at the County. She said most Commissioners check with her before contacting staff. Commissioner Jacobs agreed, and said requests should include the Board Chair in the conversation. He said this policy came about due to Commissioners wanting to edit documents line by line, and staff waiting at the fax machine for the Commissioners’ final draft to come in. He said it would take hours. He said the policy took Commissioner personalities out of the process, and directed requests through the Manager and the Board Chair. Chair Dorosin said he is comfortable with that process, and did not know there was an existing policy when he first raised the petition. He said he has not received any requests, but if he did, he would bring the request to the full Board for input. Commissioner Rich referred to the example of Commissioner McKee wanting to look at other locations, noting that an email had been sent out at the staff level, but the rest of the board had not weighed in on the request. She asked if there is a process to handle this. Chair Dorosin said staff could produce two hours of work, and pass on any results to the Board.