Adams County board trims proposed treasurer staffing after heated debate over review process

The Adams County Board of Supervisors voted on Feb. 20 to amend and adopt Resolution 4, which approved staffing allocation in the treasurer's office at one full-time equivalent (FTE) instead of the 1.5 FTE the admin recommended. The vote on the amended resolution was 14 yes, 6 no.

The issue drew extended public comment and board debate. Cara Dolesal, the county treasurer, said the office has been operating short-staffed and that removing a deputy position would undermine internal controls and taxpayer protections. "Every dollar that runs through this county goes to the treasurer's office," Dolesal said, adding that processes such as verifying deposits, opening mail and reviewing tax accounts require separate hands to maintain proper segregation of duties.

The matter reached the full board after the administration circulated a memorandum recommending the staffing change. Several supervisors objected to the process and to the substance of the memo. Supervisor Dozel said the county manager circulated materials to the full board before the meeting and raised concerns the board had not been given access to the task-group work product: "We have a very huge concern with the integrity of our process in this county," Dozel said. The county manager responded that distributing a memo to the board was within her authority and that it was sent blind copied to avoid reply-all and creating a quorum by email.

An amendment offered by Supervisor Edwards struck language in the resolution that would have left the treasurer's office at 1.5 FTE and instead set the office at a single full-time position plus the elected treasurer; that amendment passed 13-7. After further discussion the amended resolution passed 14-6. Supervisors recorded as voting no on the final resolution were Podowski, Noselle, Craviglio, Arpies, Shelton and McLaughlin.

Board members, the treasurer and staff described competing factual accounts of the review that led to the staffing recommendation. The county manager and HR manager said a task group of staff with combined experience reviewed the office and interviewed the then-incumbent deputy; the HR manager said she contacted the task-group members and that they declined to be identified because they feared retaliation. The county manager said some duties traditionally in treasurer offices elsewhere have been centralized in Adams County, which reduces head-count comparability to other counties.

Dolesal disputed the sufficiency of the review and detailed examples she said show ongoing workload demands: unpaid or underpaid tax accounts that required staff outreach and manual remediation, the need for secondary verification of deposits and the role of the property-lister function in protecting property records. "I went through tax season without a deputy treasurer," Dolesal said. She said the office is currently handling a workload she described as higher than peers and that reducing staff risks missed controls and taxpayer penalties.

The HR manager told the board the task group had combined experience she characterized as 9'11 years and that two members had roughly five and four-and-a-half years each working with the treasurer's office; she also said the then-deputy (Kim) had told the group the office could operate with two trained full-time employees (one elected treasurer, one full-time deputy). The county manager said the task group relied on the job description attached to the memo and interviews conducted during the review.

After the vote, the amended resolution will be forwarded per the administrative process to implement the staffing allocation in the treasurer's department. The resolution as amended changes the staffing allocation language in the county's resolution packet from the initially proposed 1.5 FTE to 1.0 FTE for the deputy/function identified in the packet.

The discussion included multiple requests for public access to the review documents and for clarity on who participated in the internal task group; board members urged greater transparency about future review processes and about whether formal job studies will be used before staff reductions. Several supervisors said they would seek further procedural changes or more complete documentation for similar reviews going forward.

The meeting record shows robust engagement: multiple supervisors, the treasurer, county administration and HR testified in public and during the committee phase. The board also accepted an amendment during the meeting that narrowed the staffing change before final adoption.