Commissioners seek clearer staffing and budget transparency; staff to provide quarterly reports and department exports

County finance and human resources staff told the Board of Commissioners the staffing plan is the county’s principal budgeting control and a dynamic list of approved positions that the board ultimately approves during the budget process.

Dean Bott, county finance director, and HR Director Donna Kinsey outlined how the staffing plan records filled and vacant positions across departments and is used to cost personnel lines during budget preparation. Bott said the staffing plan includes roughly 500+ employees (board members and staff referenced counts around 580–586 depending on part-time counting) and that personnel costs are a large portion of county expenditures.

Commissioners asked for more routine transparency: quarterly snapshots showing how many FTEs are filled and vacant by department, exportable Workday reports so each department can be reviewed in a single page spreadsheet, vacancy history for long-unfilled positions, and a percent-expended financial comparison to the prior year. Bott and Donna said those reports exist and can be provided: "we do have that information, and we could provide that to you on a quarterly basis," Bott said. Staff also noted a public-facing financial health dashboard is feasible but would likely cost more than $25,000 to build.

Board members debated a 2016 staffing-plan amendment that might give the administrator interim authority to adjust staffing between budgets; staff will review the resolution text and report back to the board. Administrators also explained constraints around federal and state grant-funded positions that require flexible classification and part-time arrangements.

Next steps: staff to email a department-by-department export from Workday, provide quarterly staffing and financial snapshots (including percent expended comparisons to prior year), and return with clarification on any mid-year amendment language from 2016.