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Benton County commissioners flag NeoGov problems, agree to review evaluation process
Summary
Commissioners criticized the county's NeoGov performance-evaluation platform for recurring technical problems and discussed moving to a more meaningful review process—potentially a rotating 360-degree review or outside facilitator—with staff asked to return with options next month.
Benton County commissioners spent a significant portion of a regularly scheduled meeting reviewing the county’s performance-evaluation process for the county administrator and county counsel, criticizing the countywide NeoGov platform’s usability and asking staff to return with alternative models and concrete proposals.
Commissioners and staff said NeoGov often logs users out, prevents printing and formatting, and has erased previously entered work. ‘‘NeoGov is super complicated,’’ one commissioner said during the discussion. County Administrator Rachel said HR reports to her and that having the HR director facilitate her own review raises concerns: “To have the HR director to facilitate my own review doesn't seem appropriate.”
Why it matters: Commissioners said the current questionnaire structure (which includes topics such as “sustainability”) does not consistently map to the day-to-day duties of the two reviewed positions, limiting the usefulness of the feedback. Several commissioners supported a broader 360-degree approach—collecting input from direct reports and frontline staff in addition to the board—so reviews better reflect supervisors’ performance across the organization.
County Administrator Rachel presented examples from other jurisdictions. She described Washington County’s use of an outside facilitator, the Center for Creative Leadership, which combines evaluation with coaching and follows an initial intensive year with a lighter check-in the following year. Rachel said she would collect templates and examples and present options to the board at a future meeting.
County counsel Vance said the NeoGov questions “are just a glancing blow off the side of the battleship” for his office and that repeated categories such as sustainability do not elicit useful operational feedback. Commissioners discussed changing evaluation questions to tie directly to job descriptions and breaking broader traits—such as “integrity”—into specific sub-questions to provide clearer, comparable ratings over time.
Direction to staff: The board asked staff to return with options and examples for revising the evaluation process, including possible outside facilitation and rotating 360-degree raters; the chair requested a follow-up at the next meeting cycle. Commissioners also said they want continuity of records over time while improving the review’s usefulness.
Votes at a glance: At the start of the meeting the board adopted the consent calendar. The motion to adopt passed with the affirmative voice vote recorded as “aye” by the commissioners on the dais.
Ending: Commissioners instructed staff to research alternatives and bring proposals and templates back to the board for consideration, including cost and implementation timelines.
