The County’s HR Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday, August 26 at 12:00 noon in the Administrative Conference Room. The purpose is to discuss criteria for the County Manager’s position.
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News and views from the heart of Vance County, N.C.
The County’s HR Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday, August 26 at 12:00 noon in the Administrative Conference Room. The purpose is to discuss criteria for the County Manager’s position.
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At noon on Tuesday August 26th, Commissioners Brown, Brummitt, and Wilder, the Human Resource Committee, will meet to discuss criteria for the County Manager’s position. At this time no other information is publically available explaining the process for determining the criteria. If the time of day is any indication the Board of Commissioners through its committee is saying we don’t need your help; the process is complete and the criteria is set .
As Michael Corleone said to his brother, “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.” The following is not personal it’s strictly business.
Readers of HiH or the Dispatch know the County Manager announced his intentions to retire three days following the August board meeting and one day before a county employee was arrested and charged with embezzling more the $300,000 of taxpayers’ money. The timing of those two events is subject of much public speculation and heightened suspicion of county management and elected officials.
Based on the content of the Dispatch’s news report the county’s finance department has been lacking basic accounting controls and computer access controls for at least seven years. Following the collapse of Enron CEOs and CFOs of public corporation annually attest that their accounting controls are sufficiently adequate to detect and prevent an embezzlement of this magnitude. Unless there is some, as yet, undisclosed circumstance it appears that our County Manager and the Board of Commissioners did not establish nor independently confirm that accounting and computer access controls were sufficiently adequate to detect and prevent this alleged embezzlement. CEOs and CFOs of public corporation know that “on their watch” an embezzlement of this magnitude is career limiting.
Before the committee meets the voters must be assured that the current County Manager is neither an active or passive participant in any discussion of the criteria for the future county manager.
The committee needs to assure all voters that the assessment criteria is open and in full public view. The City of Henderson engaged Management and Personnel Services Group – MAPS – of North Carolina to facilitate the search for the current police chief. I understand MAPS was the facilitator in the search for the City Manager. I attended the public meetings facilitated by MAPS that established the criteria city voters expected in the candidates for police chief. Using a facilitator from outside the county and not linked historically or by heredity to the county will greatly improve our search for candidates with strong management skills and weak heredity to the county.
I encourage readers of HiH and voters to attend the committee meeting on Tuesday, August 26th. At least three commissioners will see you although do expect to be heard. You can see who bought lunch, taxpayers’ of committee members.
The HR Committee, the County Manager, and HR Director got together to set the criteria for the new county manager and craft an advertisement for the position. This was accomplished in full view of exactly one interested Vance County voter and the reporter from the Dispatch. Before the august group met to set the criteria they had an enjoyable lunch paid for by the Vance County taxpayers. Following lunch they got right down to business, reviewing the criteria prepared by a former county commissioner whose major claim to fame is selling a pipe dream to his fellow members now called the water project in Vance County. I was denied a copy of the criteria for dissemination on HiH, because doing so would give an unfair advantage to the (other) candidate(s). In all due fairness, the committee did agree to allow the public an opportunity to express their desires and expectations of the new county manager at the September 8, 2014 board meeting. The advertisement for the position will be approved at the same meeting. I did speak after the meeting with two commissioners telling both that from my seat the City of Henderson put more time and effort into setting the criteria for the new police chief than Vance County has done selecting the county manager. Listen to the audio; it is forty-five minutes long, if you have the any interest in hearing the unedited words and thoughts of three elected officials otherwise continue on in your world. Rusty, if you read this remember all we can do is put the feed and water out for the horses they have to eat and drink it.
Note: our intrepid and busy editor has the audio file and said he would post it soon.
Michael: You state: ” I was denied a copy of the criteria for dissemination on HiH, because doing so would give an unfair advantage to the (other) candidate(s).” Correct me if I am wrong, but that implies that a current candidate has seen the criteria before today, doesn’t it?
Ms. Miller thank you for recognizing my intention with that sentence.
Here is what led me to imply the fix is in. First the time and place of the initial meeting of the HR committee is a barrier to public attendance. Second the meeting subject, reviewing the criteria for the new county manager and creating the newspaper advertisement. Third, the criteria outline had been solicited from only one person a former county commissioner. Fourth the scheduling of the public comment period is prior to the board’s approval of the criteria and the print advertisement submitted by the committee. Fifth overtime I have observed voter apathy when the commissioners have reached out for suggestions and ideas.