Crook County commissioners met Friday afternoon in a special session to review and refine core service descriptions for internal departments including finance, the county legal office, human resources and administration.

The session was framed by County Manager Will Van Bector as part of an effort to align departmental functions with the county's budget and strategic planning. Finance Director Christina Herron described finance's core functions — revenue collection, vendor payments, budgeting and debt management, payroll and benefits administration, and audit and compliance — and said the county recently completed data conversion to a new ERP and is undertaking validation work. "The ERP is going to be a huge step in that direction," Herron said.

The discussion centered on implementation and capacity. Herron told commissioners the new financial system has imported data and staff are crosswalking and validating records; she also noted recruitment challenges in finance and ongoing investments in automation and analytics to reduce manual work. Legal counsel Eric Blaine described the office's role in civil representation, contract and ordinance review, public-records responses and employment-law matters. Blaine warned the office will be "down from 3 employees to 2" after an upcoming departure and said the office may outsource discrete, time-limited projects to outside counsel to manage workload while maintaining continuity.

Human Resources Director Megan Key outlined HR's mission and metrics — including a target of 75% internal customer satisfaction, an average time-to-fill of 60 days and a goal to reduce countywide turnover to 12% — and described plans to implement a self-serve HRIS (NeoGov) to consolidate recruiting, time-and-attendance data and benefits administration. Key stated the HR group's personnel budget at "420,000 for personnel for 3 people" and said NeoGov rollout and beta testing are planned over the coming months.

County Manager Van Bector emphasized that the core service descriptions will be used as an annual touchpoint for budget planning and strategic decisions. "We're gonna use the core service description as a touchpoint, on an annual basis, [to] kick off the budget planning process each year," he said. He scheduled additional special sessions to review IT and facilities and said staff will incorporate commissioner feedback into a final package for presentation at a regular board meeting.

No formal policy actions or ordinances were adopted during the special session. The only recorded formal motion was to adjourn; an unnamed commissioner moved to adjourn, a second was made, commissioners called for a voice vote and the motion carried.

The board plans follow-up special meetings next week to continue core service reviews, with at least one more meeting slated in January to finalize descriptions ahead of the budget cycle.