I took a peek at the new Organizational Chart that goes into effect on June 30, 2010 for the county of San Bernardino:  OrganizationalChart.  Several things stood out.

First, it looks like County Administrative Officer Greg Devereaux undid all the completely stupid and self-serving changes former County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer made last year.  No more empire building for Ufferites.

Second, unless I missed it, which is possible, this reorganization did not go before the Board of Supervisors for approval.  I know when I worked for the Deputy Administrator for EPWA, one of the last projects we worked on was a large-scale county reorganization that took Architecture and Engineering and another important division that I can’t remember now away from Marie Alonzo and made a number of other changes including eliminating our own jobs.  I know that had to go before the Board of Supervisors for approval as has other county reorganizations since so I wonder:  Is this Devereaux’s way of showing who is boss?

Third, I noticed the Legislative Affairs/Intergovermental Relations division (in this county both of those titles are just plain wrong!!) and the newly created “Board Projects” division, are both under the County Administrative Officer.  When I worked for the Board of Supervisors, our division was called “Governmental Relations” if I remember correctly, and it came out of the CAO’s budget and answered to the BOS.

Before I was hired, there were three analysts, Linda Hardy, Fazle Quadri, and Deborah Barmack.  I was hired just shortly after Deborah went to SANBAG and she was not replaced because, guess what?, the county was facing a severe budget crisis.  So I worked for Linda and Fazle only.

Our division handled the entire county legislative package, produced multiple position board items each week, was responsible for the recruitment and appointment (and sometimes creation such as the EMCC) of all boards, commissions and committees where two or more districts had appointees.  Sometimes we did it for individual districts as well, especially the creation of new MACs, etc., because the districts tended not to have qualified staff for such work.  We also handled the OMNITRANS, SCAQMD, and CARB analysis and agenda preparation as well as special projects for the board such as Norton Reuse, Water Awareness Expo, and the exhibit for the State Fair.

When Jerry Eaves came aboard, one of his first acts was to get rid of us.  We answered to the whole board and that didn’t really agree with him.  So we because a victim of the “budget ax.”

Eventually, the county added back in a legislative analyst which has now blossomed into a whole division.  And now we are adding a “Board Projects” position or division.  We are not clear on that.

But what makes this all the more amazing is that today all five board offices has their own analysts, their own chiefs of staff, their own media liaisons, and their own deputy chiefs of staff.  So that is 20 employees on that side of the isle plus however many employees make up Legislative Affairs/Intergovernmental Relations/Board Projects to do the work that three of us did back then.

Back in the day, staff consisted of the board member and usually about five to seven other employees—field representatives and secretaries—depending on field offices, etc.  The chairman’s office was granted an extra secretary who floated with the chairmanship.  And there were three secretaries to handle reception, paying the bills, babying board members, etc.  Things sure have changed!

Does it seem that the Board of Supervisors is more productive now with millions more in staff salaries to pay?  It doesn’t seem that way to me.

Why do districts need both a chief of staff and a deputy chief of staff?  It seems to me a chief of staff, at a $150,000 a year salary, should be able to handle supervising a dozen or less employees.  And why do districts still need analysts now that they have Devereaux?  It was justified with Uffer—even I will admit to that—but now that they have a “professional” CAO, there is no need for each individual board office to have its own analyst.  Every district should be required to eliminate both their analyst and their deputy chief of staff positions.

And finally, the county has David Wert.  Why do the districts also need press release specialists?  Seriously, he can’t write any more?

So, as the rest of the county is asked to cut, the Board of Supervisors is all the more bloated.  As I mentioned about my crystal ball . . ..