Tuesday, the same day that the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors directed county department heads to begin planning for 17.5 percent budget cuts in the coming fiscal year, supervisors also approved spending $244,510 a year to add two positions in the County Administrative Officer’s office. That predictably triggered outrage.
“You are going to start here and vote on increasing staff in one department and tell the rest of the county you are taking pay cuts,” said Jim Turley, president of SEIU Local 1021, the largest union representing county workers.
Supervisors somberly listed their reasons: First, when they hired Boyce last year, they agreed to give her the staffing she would need to do the job. And a study found that virtually all other counties have at least twice as many top-level administrators and analysts to handle policy making and number crunching.
For a while now, the County Administrative Officer’s department has had a total of three employees: The CAO, an assitant CAO, and an account technician who takes care of paying bills and other clerical work. The bottleneck has been at the CAO and assistant CAO level. For years now, constant state budget changes and extra work to respond to state and federal grant issues have eaten up all the time for Assistant CAO Shirley Ryan, who is the county’s top number cruncher. That means Ryan hasn’t had time to tend to other duties, which include everything from special projects (like starting a Parks Commission) to reviewing the internal budgets of county departments.
The consequence has been clear. Going back several administrations, to Bob Lawton (who was CAO before Boyce) and to Tom Mitchell (who was CAO until the fall of 2007), there has been a pattern of an overwhelmed CAO’s office unable to respond quickly enough to a rising tide of pressing issues. The fate of Proposition 40 funding is a case study: California Voters approved a parks bond in 2002. Calaveras got allocated $1.2 million. But because Calaveras has no parks department, it fell to the CAO’s office to figure out how to appropriately spend it. Now, up against a deadline, Calaveras appears to be just barely spending those funds before they disappear, and that only thanks to the help of volunteers. I’ve seen the same happen over and over with other issues. The board of supervisors will order the CAO to make something a priority, and then the priority that the board had ordered the month before gets pushed aside. Then, years later, frustrated supervisors ask why they don’t yet have a noise ordinance, or a dark sky ordinance, etc.
I’ve often found Shirley Ryan working late at the office, and similarly in her few months as CAO Boyce can often be found there after hours, or during weekends and emergencies (such as the snow that shut the government center) when almost everyone else is gone.
Supervisors said they recognize this pattern. And they want the CAO’s office to be able to respond quickly when the feds or the state offer a grant with a short application deadline. They want the CAO’s office to respond quickly to changes in the county’s economic fortunes. Boyce seems likely to either deliver what they want or to die trying. It is worth noting that the Calaveras County Health Services Agency, which Boyce formerly headed, is helping to ease the fiscal crisis in other departments because under Boyce Health Services had set money aside that could someday be transferred to other departments. Note also that Boyce has taken a voluntary 10 percent pay cut.
Now, supervisors say they want Boyce to have an adequate team to bring her approach and meticulous planning to the entire county government.
Supervisor Steve Wilensky voted four years ago against increasing pay for the county’s top administrators. Tuesday, he joined the unanimous vote in favor of paying the $244,000 a year necessary to hire two additional positions: a chief assistant county administrative officer and an administrative analyst.
“This proposal before us is not only a good one, but it may not be enough,” Wilensky said.
Artist Atkinson dies
Mary Jane Genochio over at the Calaveras County Arts council just emailed the news that artist Robert Atkinson of Vallecito has died. Atkinson created amazing jewelry and other objects. I once had the good fortune to visit his studio in Vallecito during an arts tour. It was in a small barn and was filled with an astonishing array of sculpture and other works that reflected Atkinson’s deep knowledge of how to work with the Earth’s minerals.
Atkinson was more than an artist, however, because he also helped others to develop their abilities. He was a founder back in the 1980s of the Calaveras Arts Council and gave thousands of dollars to fund art scholarships for local students. Had he lived a few more days, he would certainly have been present at this week’s gallery showing and awards for high school works at the Arts Council gallery in downtown San Andreas.
There will be a reception and awards ceremony for the 13th annual Art Spirit High School Juried Exhibition at 1 p.m. Saturday at the gallery, 22 Main St., San Andreas.
Atkinson was 89. He died about 1 p.m. Wednesday.