Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 21, 2010,
Item 29
>> item 29, consider and take appropriate action regarding executive manager administrative operations.
>> this committee has also been meeting for a long time and they've put in a lot of time and effort to try and come up with a recommendation. It just appears a lot of time has gone by without addressing the need for this position. There are some departments that are kind of trying to make it through on their own, and i think it is necessary to do something about the position now. The other issue that has come up is that there's obviously a need for this court to pay special attention to the -- the i.t. Department. With all of the talk about the technology needs for the future, i don't know that we are well prepared to handle all of those issues in the future. We're talking about our infrastructure, and i think that we need someone who -- we probably need some outside help to get going on that process. But i know that we are moving forward like with the -- the financial system. And we don't want to find ourselves lacking for the kind of infrastructure that will be needed to handle that -- that whole system. And so there is a need for us to pay real close attention to i.t., to records management and to media. Those are kind of those areas where we don't have people who are really in the internal organization who can give all of the attention that is needed to those efforts. And i think if we're going to be the professional organization that we need to be in the future, then -- then i think we need to address those issues. Right now they come under the administrative operations executive manager, and -- but you know, that can be changed. We can set that aside to -- to be more professional in those areas. And -- and then we can talk about the other departments that would still be administrative operations. The reason that assistive operations was first set out was that it had all of the services that serve county government no matter where you were. Facilities, the need to upgrade those facilities, the need to remodel and we do spend quite a bit of money on remodeling. And -- and so that was one of the main things that -- that needed to be addressed. Also the maintenance of buildings that we own. We want them to be presentable to the public, and so -- and then, of course, human services was another area that totally addressed all of the needs of all employees and all of the county organizations. And so i think there is a possibility here to look at the position for administrative operations and i think we've taken a little too long to address filling this position. And -- and now that we have moved to fill the position of the t.n.r. Executive manager, i think that it's just a reminder that we again are lacking in having a full team of executive managers handle the issues that are important to this organization. No doubt we can probably take time to reorganize all of county government, but we know that's going to take a good while. It's going to take a real long while. And -- but in the meantime, i think it's important that we have the positions that we have available to us in the reorganization we did in 1995 to make county government more -- more responsive, more efficient and more effective. And i think we need to move on doing that, and then we can do other things that are needed. But i think one of the very serious needs that we have right now are the i.t., which really needs special attention, and we may not be able to provide that attention to you, but i would think that an external consultant would help us to kind of see where we need to be for the future. And as well as records management and the media services. All of those three need to be kind of need more attention from us. And we probably need some help, external help. I wish john sharp was still around. He could probably give us a lot of help in that area, but that's not possible anymore, but we do need to find some external help to help us with that effort. And i certainly don't want county government to look like we weren't even prepared, didn't even think about the future when the future gets here. And if we're going to be more effective and more efficient and more accountable to the taxpayers. So whatever we decided to here, i think we do need to kind of look at those three departments that i mentioned, and then i think we still need the administrative operations to handle the other departments, the facilities, hrmd and the maintenance of the county buildings, and i'm sure there's some other things that are common to all departments in the county. And then schedule the process for filling the pending position vacancy. I think the community has noticed that this position has not been filled, and the question is why not. Why not fill this position. And because if we don't, then we're going to have a team of executive managers that does not reflect the makeup of this community. One of the first issues i faced when i got here in 1995 was that there was not a team being nominated that represented the makeup of this community. I asked for some extra time and got it, and that's the way i was able to find a person of color to be able to fill that position. And then we filled the other executive manager for health and human services. And so i think that after that we did wind up with a team that reflected the makeup of this community. If we don't believe that that's important, then we're not going to believe that it's important to do redistricting. It is that crucial to me. That we fill this position and that we get back on the right track.
>> thank you.
>> commissioner, i don't believe i need to say anything after all that, but i agree with you wholeheartedly and this position has been vacant since july of 2009. And here we had mr. Geiselman, when he brought up his particular request from this court to look at filling his position as executive manager, we expeditiously moved forward, and here this position that we're referring to today has been vacant since july of 2009. Now, that does seem to be a little out of focus, and, of course, we have very -- i think commissioner gomez mentioned the departments that appeared to be in kind of disarray so some extent. And i have the hrmd folks to basically look at this and i would like them to look at this as far as the post ing is concerned, which is a of this particular item, but also of the schedule, which is b, which say allows us to look at this in the same -- through the same glasses as we did for the executive manager joe geiselman who has said that he was no longer going to be with travis county, he's retiring. And -- but again, we move forward with that at his request and, of course, again i'd like to make sure that we expeditiously fill this position similar to maybe as what joe has asked us to do. And meaning that is that there are some things we can look at as far as the posting of it. We want it to be something that we would want to deal with in-house or limited just to travis county or the scheduling, when we would like this person to come on board. I think immediately is in my opinion just as we're doing for joe geiselman. We need to have a full house complement of executive managers, no doubt about it. I know we're planning to do a lot of things, but even in the planning stage of things that you would like to do, executive manager has got to be a part of those planning aspects. It almost looks like putting the cart before the horse if we leave persons out of these particular situations. There was a few of these departments under the administrative office situations. To if -- at this time i may ask the h.r. Folks to maybe give us some kind of rendering how this will probably work if the posting and some of the scheduling, i don't want mr. Geiselman to hog up all of the -- all of the expectations from this court and then no one else get a shot at it as far as an outstanding vacancy such as administrative operations.
>> at your request, commissioner, i spoke with you last week wednesday and i did put together a project plan similar to the one i put together for joe geiselman's position. That did go to your office but i didn't see it as part of the backup so if you all did not get that, i do have a copy of it here. And it's actually fairly similar. Obviously we don't have a plan for training because there's not an outgoing executive manager in this position so we would need to put together a little more plan for training if we selected somebody for this position. Again, about a month, month and a half of posting and the first couple of weeks provide the job description so that the court, it meets with approval, and then look at a period of the team of executive managers and planned officials, interviewing and making selection along with the management of the admin ops getting to interview. And make recommendations to the commissioners court if that's what you desire. We're only a week behind where we started with joe's position so it would be a similar timetable. Again, it may be very difficult to hire somebody and get them on board before january 1st. It's just a difficult time to do it, but we have time to get somebody on by the beginning of the year in my opinion.
>> when?
>> beginning of the calendar year.
>> beginning of the year. January.
>> i think that ought to be shared with the court.
>> absolutely. I have copies.
>> so if we were to post --
>> in fact, i think you do have it, judge. I think i asked everyone to give the same --
>> i don't have it in my backup.
>> in other words, i asked staff to make sure each within of you got a copy.
>> am i the only one on the court who didn't get it?
>> no.
>> that wasn't given to --
>> we've got testimony. Three months time frame too much, best case scenario.
>> so if we were to post the position and later work on the job description, what would the posting say?
>> it would be similar to what we're doing with executive manager, a general summary of the description with a minimum qualifications. And then we would revise, spend a couple weeks revising the job description so when we have a pool of candidates, we would send out the job description once the commissioners court has --
>> are you able to have a copy of the posting by friday?
>> i can do that.
>> here's what i think. We decided two, three weeks ago to have an october meeting and discuss this and make a decision. So my mind set has been we would wait until then to do it f the court wants to move faster, though, i'll be ready to move next week. But i need one week a courtesy. I think we ought to look at the posting and the job description. Lit take some additional time on the job description. That job description will require two to four major decisions by us and it's taken more than a year to get here so i would be real surprised if it doesn't take us another month or so to land on an appropriate job description because when you do the job description in this, we have to address those three departments that you mentioned, which have been part of administrative operations since not the beginning of time but the beginning of this organization or structure. That's real important. Today we got two or three memos indicating -- well, recommending different stuff. So if this court wants to move immediately, i think we ought to work toward having an appropriate posting by next tuesday. Unlike joe's position, joe is still here and we would be hiring a director of t.n.r., which is pretty much what joe has been, so his situation was simpler and did not have some of the thorny issues that i think administrative operations will have. But if our goal is to try to fill it by either the end of this year or the first part of next year, we can do that. Now, i thought there would be something just inherently valuable about us sitting down in a kind of work session setting and spending two, three hours to think through this, talk through it, then make a decision. We had decided to do it in october and i don't know whether we had a date or not, but i know we thought mid-october after the budget when hopefully things have settled down a bit and we would have a free -- free mind where we could do that. In my view, that is still a better approach, but if we want to move faster than that, then i think we ought to try to get an appropriate posting working with our h.r. Director and vote on the posting next tuesday, and in addition to when to fill the job, it seems to me that we have to have a schedule for when we finalize the job description and really before we can do that, we've got to figure out what do we do about hrmd, what do we did about facilities, i.t.s., those three departments, as well as some of the other things we ought to consider. So i don't know that -- we were hoping for miracles from the core team and haven't gotten them yet.
>> they've been meeting.
>> this is -- these are thorny issues caught up in this and i'm almost done. So either one is fine with me. There is no way to get around addressing the thorny issues and there's no way to get around taking i say anywhere from three or four to five weeks to do that. But we can have that posting ready next tuesday and approve it if we want to proceed in that direction.
>> i'd like to pursue that in the direction of getting this vacancy filled immediately. But also, i recall the job description issue when it came up to mr. Geiselman. In fact, i think if i can recall correctly, i believe hrmd, museum ever said it, it may -- whomever said it, it may have been mr. Geiselman, whomever, if i recall correctly, that the job description was recently a new job description. In other words, it was 2009 when that job description was updated.
>> it was october of 2009 at the executive manager.
>> job description. So all of them. Why can't that hold true for this one? In other words, we have looked at his job description and we are going forward with his job description and his request becausenr the job description had been updated accordingly. And it was the latest one. So do we have to go back and now revisit joe geiselman's job description to make sure it meets all the bells and whistles of things that he's doing. I don't think so, we've already approved it.
>> we are bringing a job description -- a revision back next tuesday.
>> joe's also?
>> that's the one we're bringing.
>> i want to make sure both of them are treated the same. I don't want neither one of them to be treated any different in this because diversity is very key in this particular issue, and, of course, similarities of what our executive managers are doing here are very key. And i want to make sure that that is the actual case, i want to expeditiously move forward with it and joe's end as far as where he is moving forward and looking at january for his particular date is fine. But also i want the same -- the same clout and the same urgency given to administrative ops executive manager. So that's where i'm coming from so i think we need to move quickly on both of them.
>> well, i disagree with that and i don't think the two are the same and i think unless there is a vote on -- in two or three areas that i mentioned previously they won't be the same. If there is a vote to make them the same, so be it. But they have not been the same for the last year and they won't be the same for the next year, in my view, unless there is a vote to make them that way. We are apart on that otherwise we would have filled this thing a year ago. The reason we waited a year so we could deal with some of the fundamental questions that had surfaced, and upon which there was divided opinion. And the way you do that is sit down, try to talk through it and then you take a vote. I don't know whether the vote would end up being 3-2 or 5-0, but the closer to 5-0 the better off we are because this person has to work for all of us.
>> i guess my question why are re treating joe different?
>> joe is still here. That administration operations position has been vacant for a whole year and we have been filling that with band-aid approach by several other managers. Even if we vote to do the same old same old, seems to me we ought to do that after discussions. I don't know that a 15-minute discussion here -- is the time to do it.
>> you asked for a week's courtesy and, of course, you will get that, but i just want to make sure that diversity still is a part of what we're doing in this county.
>> there's no way to address diversity in the job description.
>> no, no, i didn't say that. I think commissioner gomez brought up a key point. I don't want to treat joe any different than this particular position. I want to make sure there is some equity here across the board. And, of course, by a job description coming in next week, i think and out of courtesy, judge, you would like to have at least a week to look at that, but as far as filling this position, i would like for it to be done basically the same way with joe which is a january deal. He asked for january of the beginning of the year when that particular situation would not be with the court. And i think that the hrmd person suggested the same thing as far as looking at -- for similarities, looking at that also in january. So that's basically where --
>> if you look at the duties and responsibilities of the executive manager, administrative operations, they call into question several things that we said we would look at. And i think we ought to look at them no matter how we decide to go on them. I'm not suggesting we employ a certain way, but i think our procedure ought to be to give us a opportunity to think through, to deliberate through these before we land. I can be ready next week. I think we would be rushing through it and i think we ought to stick to our october work session/sort of mediation effort because i think -- this is just one thing in that the other one was work plan that the executive managers have talked about. You know, there's records management. There's several ways to do it that i think we ought to look at even if we decide -- if a majority of us decides that how we have done it historically is better than any of these options. I think we would -- we wares a golden opportunity to review options by rushing through it. And even if we rush through it, there's no way to rush through the job description because we've got to take some time and look at it. It will not be as easy as the executive manager of t.n.r. Because we -- my guess is that other than putting the p periods and changing clones to semi clones, this will be the same thing. If we end up here, this will be serious discussion. Putting a team of core professionals and that takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort from not only doing your duties, but adding some others to it.
>> yeah.
>> and i think that -- when i first met with i think the core group, i told them i didn't want to waste their time. I knew exactly what i wanted to do with that position. And other people wanted to take more time, fine. You know, i can always say, yeah, let's spend a little more time and i can drum up the patience to do that. But i think a whole year is just a bit much now and we're really --
>> we put on lot on their plate, including 700 lavaca.
>> i know, but that's why we need some kind of report from them and let's take some votes and let's make some decisions so that we can free 'that you are time for other things. There are other things on their mind.
>> that's why they asked an october session to bring us the results of their -- --
>> well, i know, but we won't have the whole court. Commissioner davis won't be able to be here. He needs to take a vacation.
>> their time truly will have been wasted if we don't provide them the courtesy of that.
>> that won't be wasted. What's being wasted is the past year.
>> i'm willing to wait until commissioner davis' vacation is over.
>> i'm willing to wait because i think the whole court needs to be there. There's a time certain for us to discuss this with the other folks who are involved in this -- in this work. And i think we need to meet and we need to make a decision.
>> if we can make that decision next week as far as filling the vacancies and looking at these job descriptions, i think it's very appropriate. And i think -- for one thing, this is where i'm coming from. I would hate for anybody to plan for me and i'm not sitting at the table. I don't care what you are planning. If i'm not at the table, i don't want you planning for me. And that's the way i'm looking at executive manager. There is a vacancy that we have here and we are planning -- putting plans on the table and it's just like the head -- legs running around would no head. That's the way it appears to me and i thank joe geiselman for the way he came up and looked at his situation and said look, i've got all of these legs attached to me and i want to make sure i have a head when i -- when i leave here. I want to make sure there's a head. Well, this is the same similar situation. We have a lot of legs under an executive manager's position and there's no head. And so i think we need a head. Planning is just great, but planning without a head, in my opinion, is something that i wouldn't -- couldn't support because i definitely wouldn't want anyone planning for me without me sitting at the table, i don't care who you are. That's just the way it is, it is the cart before the horse.
>> can we find a good date when all of us can be here? Because i think that's important.
>> i'm available any day but christmas day. And if we finish our work by 12 noon, i'm come christmas morning.
>> we need to --
>> this is going to be on the agenda next week, judge, you wanted a courtesy?
>> i don't think you are hearing us, commissioner. We're trying to find a date we can discuss this thing fully. And if your request is we wait until you return from vacation, let's do it.
>> my request is what's on the agenda right now, is to fill a vacancy for administrative ops and as far as -- as we discussed earlier, that's what i'm trying to get a resolve to on that is the item that's before us today. And you said you needed a week to --
>> i said my preference was for us to have our discussion in october as we voted previously. But to me it's important to have the whole court there. But four of us can't make a fifth one attend, but we are all elected to serve the people of travis county and attending an important meeting is what we ought to be about. That's my position. If the majority of this court wants to move quicker than that, i can be ready next tuesday. That's the fallback position. That in my view is unwise in the total circumstance.
>> it is unwise to fill a position, a vick silver stone?
>> do you have a motion?
>> that's unwise?
>> do you have a motion?
>> yes, i'd like to bring it back next week with appropriate job description as she said she would bring it back next week for joe, i would like this one to be brought back the same way.
>> i'm sorry, can i weigh in on that? I'm not sure i can bring in one week an appropriate job description and get all your input in one week. I can try.
>> well, i thought --
>> especially to get it to you ahead of time so you can review it. I can try and bring a position announcement on friday ai'm happy to do that. I would ask that you claire -- clarify the functional because i've heard i.t. And some other areas you may want to take out. If you can gain consensus that would be most helpful or i can do it as the position is currently listed with all the functional areas. If i could gain clarification, that would be helpful.
>> that's what i hear from the judge that clarification will come after the court meets with the core team. Correct?
>> yeah. I think we ought to discuss that. But a half day's discussion should be all it takes. If we've got a facilitator there, it should move faster. I'm not trying to delay this, i'm trying to put us in the best decision, i think, to make -- best position to make the best decision. The other option we want to have that full discussion, move that work session up before october, i can do it. It may be hard to get a facilitator before october. But -- now, we had decided, and commissioner gomez, i don't think you were here, but we were looking toward i thought the middle of october when we would all work together --
>> i was here when we talked about october 21.
>> to me, that seemed like a good strategy. Now, if we post the position, though, we really need to list the functional areas in that.
>> right.
>> i would recommend that, yes. For an appropriate posting.
>> otherwise it will be such a skeleton posting it would be almost meaningless. Shed light on it, mr. Rhoades. You want to weigh in too?
>> well, i just wanted to weigh in as the management team's designated facilitator. We have been working for over a year. I will tell you that, you know, we have been doing other things besides just debating organizational structure, hiring ms. Blankenship being one, tracy calloway the other and that has occupied a great deal of our time. We -- as was mentioned a week or so ago we have every intention of engaging the court in full on organizational discussions. We would like to obviously at some point land on organizational recommendations, but we -- we believe as a team that we need the court's input on that. We would recommend and will be recommending next week the item that's posted or will be posted, i should say, if allowed, that the planning team meet with the court in october and we had targeted the 28th as a potential date to meet and we're going to request that. Going forward, and we'll meet whenever the court is available and would like to do so.
>> my point when will this come back on job description. Diversity is very key not per se as the job description but the makeup of the executive managers and this position again, i hate to keep reiterating, it's been taking over a year and i just think that's been too long. And this position announced recently it's going to be vacated. It's like we're treating two things different and it's something i can't grabs or hold on to because of the need to fill the slot. And we could do one or we can do the other.
>> is there a possibility of bringing that sooner than october 28th?
>> we can bring it whenever the court is available. All we need to do, we are looking to engage an outside facilitator and we just need to lock in a date.
>> how much is this facilitator going to cost?
>> roughly less than $2,000. And that will be internally funded by all the members of the management team.
>> i want to commend the management team for their work. It really has been a high degree of collaboration and the interdepartmental exchange is exactly what we're looking for in terms of higher degree of collaboration and strategic planning across divisions. But i agree that it would be foolhardy to make a decision on administrative ops without the benefit of this work session in advance of that decision.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> did we vote the 28th or 21st?
>> we did not. We were going to bring it back next week and request a date. And we're asking for the 28th. We can make it any date the commissioners' court wants to make t i need to lock down the facilitator and make sure he will available for that date.
>> i suggest we coordinate it with commissioner davis and on the best day.
>> let's put it back in the alternative, commissioner. Let's bring the item back in such a way that we can decide one way or the other. But it will be posted in the alternative. But the alternative that has the facilitated work session, let's have a specific date. Okay?
>> we've noted that.
>> now, i know several people have been gathering information that might be helpful, so if we could just indicate next week a time to pull that together to get it to court members and then if we all check our schedules, i do think we ought to keep it in october, late october, if possible. , and what day of the week -- is it thursday we're shooting for?
>> thursday afternoon.
>> the 28th.
>> when we normally have work session. So if somebody's not available on a particular thursday afternoon -- let's say from the middle of october through the end, just let rodney know and we'll take that date out. But our goal should be to choose a date that we can all be there. And what we'll have posted, commissioner davis, on the other hand, would be post another position, complete the job description and --
>> this is for next week?
>> the alternative, though. Gives us cans to choose owe co-chance to choose one of the two froaches.
>> i don't mind if that's what the court decides to do, that's what they decide to do. But i just hope it's enough time for the hrmd director to make sure that what she prepared for mr. Gieselman is also something similar that she can prepare for the administration opposition.
>> and just to clarify, with the existing functional areas.
>> yeah, in other words, the job description isn't that old. It's about a year old.
>> we would vote on the job description next week too if we want you to proceed.
>> okay.
>> so if you can get together the best posting that you can, i guess based on the status quo, that would help us.
>> i'll do that.
>> i blame joe gieselman.
>> [ laughter ] he started all of this.
>> so do i.
>> point of clarity, just process. On suggestions for changes to the job description, whatever it is, what's your process for getting suggestions and time frame?
>> i've been meeting with joe and also we met with the county attorney's office yesterday so that we're working closely with them in their reviewing. They're very interested in what gets put up as far as the job description because we'll probably be held to it and also that we're within statute, that we're not giving too much authority and not enough authority. We're working together on that. I took a stab at it, joe has it in his court right now and i'll be meeting with a couple of the commissioners who have requested meetings in the rest of the week. So again, one week is a tight time frame, but if we're going to use the existing functional areas, then we can look at the job description we have right now.
>> with regard to making any suggestions on the job description, would you prefer it come in a red-lined accept changes, reject changes format? What would be most useful in that die dan tick of a level?
>> joe and i with the county attorneys very working on this and it has come from some suggestions from the commissioners. On the other hand, we're trying to make this as reflective of the job as we know it as possible. So what i would prefer is to meet with commissioners, incorporate what changes we can, but then give copies to the commissioners and they might want to phrase something alternative to that. So what would be my preference other than trying to get everybody -- five people. I think that it needs to be looked that the way rather than trying to cobble together something from all five people.
>> i think that's wise because in looking at the duties and responsibilities under the current administrative operations description, it does look like a meat loaf. There are some redundancies, there are some -- there are some duties and responsibilities that actually were never actually utilized.
>> and i think you'll see that we've made it a little cleaner when you get it and we're trying to actually remove the redone ant dant si, especially in the kfa's and make it function as a very large job description, the tnr job description, so we're trying to make it easier to digest.
>> thank you.
>> i can hardly wait until next week.
>> me either.
>> we'll have this posted early.
>> thank you.
>> thanks. Let's take up the septic system items, okay. We may not need to discuss all of them, but i wanted to discuss one and make sure i understood it.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 7:57 PM
