wp2By now everyone knows that Treasurer Mary Barton not only undertakes the duties of treasurer as defined in ORS 208 and also accepted the appointment by the board as the county’s designated tax collector and budget officer pursuant to ORS 311.055 and 294.331 respectively. Barton has announced that she will not run again for treasurer in 2016 and according to Barton and the commissioners there is no guarantee the next treasurer will want to assume the appointed roles and therefore we must start training suitable replacements as soon as possible.

A solution proffered by the commissioners in a two to one vote is to hire a finance director with a salary range from $4,000 to $7,000 per month to take over Barton’s extra duties and who will answer directly to the commissioners. According to the job description which you can read here the county will establish an official “Finance Office”.

Directs the County’s financial management including financial reporting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets and payroll. Directs the development and implementation of related policies and procedures. Responsible for the initial development of the County’s annual budget and subsequent amendments of budgets during the fiscal year. Administers the daily operations of the Finance Office.

Amidst fears that a finance director is just another name for a county administrator Commissioner Melissa Cribbins adamantly maintains that the duties of the finance director are entirely different than those of an administrator, but is this wholly true? Nestled in the job description is this statement – 3. Establishes internal operating policies and procedures, accounting and budgetary policies and procedures for adoption by the County. Didn’t both Sweet and Cribbins campaign with the expectation of turning over day to day operations to an administrator so they could focus on setting policy?

The finance director will also have influence over all the departments just as an administrator would and is essentially taking over roles that ought to be handled by the liaisons. 8. Provides budgetary analysis service to County departments. Evaluates budgetary performance of various departments. Develops guidelines for improvements in the budget development, planning and control processes.
9. Directs the development and administration of the County’s capital improvement plan, including financial analysis and restructuring of debt, bond issues, capital construction, self insurance, and lease/purchase agreements.

Finally, the job description shows no limits to the authority of the finance director and about the only obvious difference between the finance director and an administrator is the ability to fire and hire or reprimand other department staff but even that could change. According to the job description, “This document in no way implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee occupying this position”.

One thing is clear, Commissioner John Sweet’s ally and campaign contributor Jon Barton views a finance director and an administrator as being equal, each imbued with comic book superpowers and x-ray vision and they probably will glow in the dark and part seas, etc…

Neither Sweet nor Cribbins expected to be full time commissioners and as someone pointed out to me, the finance director job description looks a lot like the commissioner’s job description. Sweet advised me recently, twice in fact, that “twenty seven departments is a lot for one commission to handle”. The conversation came up in context to reorganizing how the departments communicate with the commission and possibly doing away with the liaison assignments. (This matter is on the agenda for tomorrow’s BOC meeting).

Whether hiring a finance director is just a stealthy workaround to set in place an administrator or not, it still appears that Cribbins and Sweet are putting a lot of energy into turning their duties over to appointed rather than elected officials.