Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Organizational Structure topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County Executive Josh Schoeman unveils cabinet reshuffle to boost engagement and operations
Summary
Washington County announced a reorganization of its executive cabinet, adding a chief innovation officer and a chief legal officer, moving community development into the innovation portfolio and creating a chief operating officer role to oversee HR and finance; Scott Schmidt and Aaron Dahl were named to new roles.
County Executive Josh Schoeman announced a restructuring of Washington County's executive cabinet on WASHCO Weekly, saying the changes are intended to improve communication with residents and coordination across county departments. "We rolled out a number of new changes to our organizational structure," Schoeman said, adding that the cabinet now has six positions, up from five.
Schoeman said two new cabinet roles — a chief innovation officer and a chief legal officer — were created. "We used to have a chief administrative officer. We now have a chief innovation officer and a chief legal officer," he said. Aaron Dahl, who Schoeman described as the county's former chief administrative officer, will serve as chief innovation officer with a broader charge on both internal customer service and external citizen engagement.
Schoeman said the innovation portfolio will include the community development department and will help facilitate quarterly listening sessions and other outreach. He said the county historically held about a half-dozen listening sessions each quarter and plans 3 to 5 sessions in August focused on topics such as fire and emergency medical services. "That department is gonna help us focus on getting feedback and input from the community and then bringing that back to policy makers," Schoeman said.
The county attorney will join the cabinet as chief legal officer, Schoeman said, noting that the county attorney is an appointed position that reports to the county executive. Schoeman said adding the county attorney to the cabinet will better integrate legal oversight with human resources and other customer-service functions.
Operational functions that touch every department, including human resources and finance, will be overseen by a new chief operating officer, Schoeman said. He named Scott Schmidt, highway commissioner and former chief public works officer, to that role. Other cabinet positions ' including chief land use and planning (formerly chief community development officer), chief health and human services, and chief public safety officer ' were described as largely unchanged.
Schoeman also flagged changes in how communications will be handled in the county executive's office and said the executive assistant will transfer to the sheriff's office. He closed the message by stressing that the reorganization is intended to better serve "the people of Washington County" and to support county employees who deliver services.
No formal board votes or ordinance actions were reported during the announcement; Schoeman presented the reorganization as an executive-branch management change and did not describe any pending formal approvals.
