Lake County work session weighs part-time, temporary hires to fill vacant E-911 director role

Lake County officials on Monday continued efforts to fill a long-open E-911 director position, discussing part-time, temporary and consultant options and agreeing to repost the job with a minimum 20-hour-per-week part-time option and a separate temporary listing.

The managing board for Lake County emergency communications has been without a permanent director for about two years, officials said. During the June 16 work session, board members and county staff reviewed classification choices in the Lake County personnel handbook, current recruitment platforms and whether to hire a consultant or a recruiting firm to broaden the applicant pool.

The move to reopen hiring follows multiple recruitment attempts, said the board’s lead speaker, Jeremiah, who described a pattern of candidates applying and then disengaging. The board has expanded salary ranges and offered bonuses in previous rounds but has not been able to hire a permanent director. “September will be two years,” Jeremiah said of the board’s hiring effort.

Why it matters: the director post is the central position that links the managing board, supervisors and frontline dispatchers and carries responsibilities the board said include training, recruitment and retention, policy, project management, supervision and budget oversight.

What the board decided and discussed - Job classifications: The board reviewed Lake County personnel classifications discussed in the meeting: full time (over 30 hours), regular part time (under 30 hours), a temporary appointment (described in the meeting as limited in duration under the county handbook) and occasional/on-call or independent consultant arrangements. Board members agreed occasional/on-call does not fit the role. - Minimum hours for part-time search: The group set a working minimum of about 20 hours per week as the baseline for any part-time hire, with the expectation that fewer hours (for example, only an hour a week) would not produce substantive progress. - Separate postings: County staff recommended posting separate listings for full-time and part-time/temporary roles to see which attracts better responses. - Temporary pay and benefits: Staff noted a temporary hire would not receive county benefits, which could justify a higher hourly rate for short-term appointments; if a temporary hire later moved to full time, the board must be clear the permanent salary and benefits package would follow county compensation rules. - Recruitment platforms and costs: The county uses JazzHR as its applicant tracking system and paid postings with national 9-1-1 organizations; the meeting noted past paid dissemination costs of about $800 for certain national outlets and a recruiting-firm quote of roughly $14,000 (the board described that as a significant cost). The board said expanding the classification options could broaden the candidate pool and called on members to use personal networks and industry contacts to identify candidates. - Consultant option: Members said a consultant could provide a diagnostic “to do” list on day one, as happened in other jurisdictions; hiring a consultant was described as an additional cost but potentially useful if internal options fail. - Timeline and next steps: County operations staff (Candace) and HR (Zoe) were directed to repost the position with the agreed options and to work on pay ranges and hourly rates for temporary/part-time listings. The board planned to review initial results and consider further action at the regular meeting on July 11, including whether to engage an outside recruiter if the reposting fails to produce candidates.

Recruitment and training expectations Board members emphasized that successful candidates should bring prior experience in a dispatch center and familiarity with 9-1-1 system transitions and applicable regulations — including the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and entity/ETC requirements discussed in the meeting — so that onboarding focuses on local systems rather than basic dispatch fundamentals. The board also discussed temporary retirees or experienced directors from neighboring jurisdictions as possible short-term hires or mentors.

Other operational planning The group discussed backup options for continuity of operations during construction or an outage, including coordination with a neighboring center (referred to in the meeting as JB County) and continuing discussions with Chaffey County about support and candidate referrals.

The work session closed with direction to repost the position, track responses, continue outreach through professional networks and regional associations, and return updates at the July 11 regular meeting.