Members of the Shawano County Executive Committee voted April 15 to approve the revamped job description for the administrative coordinator position.
Approval is expected to occur at the April 20 county board meeting, which would mean applications could soon be coming in.
Julie Hasser, director of human resources and interim administrative coordinator, led the charge to rewrite the job description. She expressed a few concerns to the committee — not about the position itself, but about the attitude of the county board in potentially attracting candidates.
She said that while many committee members favored the new job, some on the county board questioned the changes that made the job less of a controlling position and more of a collaborative one. Under the proposed description, department heads would no longer report to the administrative coordinator.
Hasser was concerned that if the full board is not publicly behind the changes, it may be hard to attract candidates.
“We’re making decisions and conversations in a very public manner regarding this position,” she said. “I start to get a little bit concerned about the way the county supports this decision and supports this position. I think that when we have such differing views being shared, that can really cause angst or concern and, quite bluntly, it really hinders the success of the person in the position moving forward when we don’t have everybody on our team supporting it.”
She said recruitment efforts could be hampered without full public support of the board.
“If there’s unease and — I hate to use this term — drama, in this position, no one’s going to want to do the job when they don’t feel that the board is supporting what they want to do,” she said.
In scouring state statutes with Larenda Maulson, corporation counsel, Hasser discovered that only six department heads could report directly to the administrative coordinator, even if the county had that as part of the job description. Those department heads are UW-Extension, facilities and maintenance, finance, human resources, land conservation and parks.
By law, corporation counsel, highway, human services, library, public health and veterans must report to the county board or home committees. Elected officials are clerk of courts, coroner, county clerk, district attorney, register of deeds, sheriff and treasurer.
“I’m always fearful of giving one person too much power in an organization this size,” Supervisor Randy Mallmann said. “Even a lot of corporate organizations do have a board that is involved in major decision-making, and I think it’s very important, because things can get out of control quickly.”
“And I think our history has proven that,” added Supervisor Bill Switalla.
Department heads also weighed in on the new job duties.
“I like the final version, because I do believe we need to keep our committees all on the same page by having this one liaison to do that,” said Matt Hietpas, technology services. “Why would you have less than 50% of our departments report to one person?”
Sheriff George Lenzner said the change won’t directly affect him as he is an elected official, but he believes the current county leaders are doing a good job of involving all department heads.
“I think the department heads are working so well as a team,” he said.
He added that, during his tenure, he can’t remember a time when operations ran so smoothly.
Scott Frank, county conservationist, also likes the new job description. He said that, at past annual reviews, he found the person conducting the review knew very little about what the department staff did on a daily basis.
“It actually makes that position be more attentive to every department,” he said.
He said previous administrative coordinators were often concerned about daily challenges and fires to put out; if a department as operating smoothly, he said it was ignored.
“I think it makes it more collaborative,” Frank said. “I look forward to that.”
