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Board directs cautious rollout of Evergreen organizational review for Health and Human Services Agency
Summary
The board received Evergreen Solutions’ organizational review of the Health and Human Services Agency and directed staff to work with divisions to implement recommendations in stages, citing funding uncertainty and the need for careful rollout.
The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors on May 13 received an organizational review of the county’s Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) from Evergreen Solutions and directed staff to work with HHSA divisions to refine and phase recommended changes.
Evergreen recommended realigning HHSA into two divisions — a Health Services branch (public health and behavioral health) and a Human Services branch (social services and related programs) — creating a central compliance office, improving supervisory spans of control, and adding targeted staff. The consultant said the conservative, near-term option would add roughly five positions to address supervisory gaps and compliance needs; an ideal multi-year approach could add up to 10 positions to fully align capacity with peer counties.
Why it matters: County staff and Evergreen said workloads have increased since 2020 and many supervisors carry caseloads in addition to management duties. Evergreen’s outreach included focus groups and an anonymous employee survey (67 respondents); the firm’s predictive staffing model adjusted for travel times, caseload complexity and service demand. Board members generally supported moving forward but urged a phased approach because state and federal funding for social and behavioral health services remains uncertain.
What the report recommended • Split HHSA into Health Services and Human Services to better align program supervision and resource allocation. • Create a centralized compliance/quality office reporting to the agency director to separate audit/compliance work from casework. • Add mid‑level supervisors and program manager roles to reduce overstretched spans of control. • Create a leadership training and succession program and construct a staffing model that accounts for travel time and case complexity.
Board direction and next steps: The board gave staff direction to proceed with the recommended outreach and to return with more detailed, division-level implementation plans and budget impacts; staff said they will meet with HHSA divisions and the unions and bring a final plan to the board. Several supervisors asked that implementation be staged and limited to items that carry no immediate fiscal impact where possible.
Provenance (transcript excerpts): • Topic intro: “Item number 24 is an informational item from human resources…receive a presentation from Stacy Mitchell with Evergreen Solutions LLC on the organizational review conducted for the Health and Human Services Agency.” (transcript around 4052–4070). • Topic finish: “So, yes, we are looking for direction…if staff is free to go forward and meet with the different divisions and go through the recommendations and then, formulate the final recommendations to be brought to the board.” (transcript around 6191–6196).
