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THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT

Introduction:
Human Resources

40-County Average Grade: C+

 
 
ost county government managers talk about the current uncertain economy with an unmistakable note of sadness in their voices. Money is tight for new construction, new investments and new computers. But human resources officials take a slightly different tone. Higher unemployment rates may hurt a county in a host of ways, but they do make it somewhat easier to recruit new employees.

Human Resources Grades County   Alameda, Calif. D+ Allegheny, Pa. D- Anne Arundel, Md. C Baltimore, Md. B- Broward, Fla. B+ Clark, Nev. C- Contra Costa, Calif. B- Cook, Ill. D Cuyahoga, Ohio C- Dallas, Texas B+ Erie, N.Y. C- Fairfax, Va. A- Franklin, Ohio B- Fulton, Ga. C Hamilton, Ohio B Harris, Texas C+ Hennepin, Minn. B- Hillsborough, Fla. D King, Wash. D+ Los Angeles, Calif. B- Maricopa, Ariz. B+ Mecklenburg, N.C. B Miami-Dade, Fla. B- Milwaukee, Wis. C+ Monroe, N.Y. C- Montgomery, Md. B+ Nassau, N.Y. D Oakland, Mich. B Orange, Calif. B- Palm Beach, Fla. C Prince George's, Md. B- Riverside, Calif. B Sacramento, Calif. C San Bernardino, Calif. C- San Diego, Calif. B- Santa Clara, Calif. C+ Shelby, Tenn. B Suffolk, N.Y. C- Wayne, Mich. B- Westchester, N.Y. D+

Two years ago, Baltimore County’s chief information officer spent about a third of his time trying to recruit staffers. Now, he’s finding that techies laid off from private dot-com jobs are knocking at his door. What’s more, the county continues to benefit from changes made in its hiring practices during the previous tight job market. For example, recognizing that IT workers are often stolen away from the county by the private sector’s higher pay, Baltimore County created a separate pay scale with increased starting salaries. The climate has changed, but the incentives remain in place.

Riverside County, California, has a similar story. Not only is the county finding it easier to recruit information technology specialists, it’s put in place an innovative system for hanging on to the ones it gets. Dubbed “hot skill pay,” the new system allows IT workers in the county to increase their salaries by up to 50 percent for especially important abilities they acquire.

This is not to say, of course, that human resource managers in the counties can now spend their afternoons watching “Oprah.” Their jobs continue to be very complex, and the obstacles they face are many. “We have a lot of businesses,” says Mattye Mauldin-Taylor, director of personnel in Dallas County. “Health and human services, public engineering, jails, courts, taxing departments. Trying to come up with a compensation system to address so many different types of businesses is a challenge — especially when you have 100-plus bosses or elected officials to deal with.”

And while many counties have tried to be creative in filling and rewarding hard-to-hire positions, most jobs are still compensated with annual step increases, in which an employee simply gets a raise each year until he or she reaches the top pay level allowed for his or her job classification. Less than half of the 40 counties studied in the Government Performance Project use pay for performance — and many of those that use it do so only for higher level officials.

That said, there are some strong examples of workable performance-pay systems taking hold. Franklin County, Ohio, has had performance pay for more than 10 years, with the majority of its unions having agreed to performance-pay clauses. In 2000, the performance-based salary increases ranged from zero to 6 percent. “It’s an institutional culture here,” says County Administrator Guy Worley. “We don’t pay people for breathing on January 1.”

Many counties continue to be burdened by rigid pay systems that have generated hundreds of job classifications — more than even a diligent personnel manager can keep track of. In Miami-Dade County, there are 2,500 classifications. The human resources office gets 2,000 to 3,000 requests for reclassification a year, and currently has about a 300-case backlog. It’s contemplating a review of its classification methodology next year.

Fortunately, many counties are attempting to revise their classification/compensation systems to bring salaries to market rates. In some circumstances, counties have granted managers the flexibility to hire an individual up to the midpoint of the salary range without prior approval. Many are also conducting comprehensive market studies of industry rates in an attempt to make county government salaries more competitive.

As in all areas, the decentralized administrative structure of many counties presents a significant obstacle to efficient personnel management. Cuyahoga, for example, has a civil service system, but independent departments can opt in or out. As a result, only about half the county’s employees are covered by the central HR department, and different agencies have different compensation systems. “I have an administrative secretary here and I pay her $25,000 a year,” says Dennis Madden, director of human resources. “And under the civil service rules, we’re required to do that. But the county treasurer might pay that person $30,000.” Where this sort of confusion prevails, counties find their own agencies fighting it out as one bids against another for the same employee.

Sometimes, inadequate central control is a function of grotesquely underfunded or understaffed HR offices. “We’ve got 16,000 applicants a year,” says Robert Brandes, personnel director in Fulton County, Georgia. “We could use more people in recruiting to process the applications. But we don’t have a constituency and are last on the food chain.” In San Bernardino County, California, HR initiatives were paralyzed for several years while the county suffered through a series of scandals. Budgetary cutbacks led to the dismantling of the classification division, which the county is now trying to rebuild.

As with financial management, the root of many problems in the human resources field lies at the state level. Hamilton County, Ohio, has to abide by a state law that prohibits it from hiring anyone who doesn’t live within Ohio. “We can hire someone 200 miles away in Ohio, but not 2 miles away in Kentucky who has the skills we need,” says Gary Berger, the county personnel director. “We have one hand tied behind our back.”

Milwaukee County is forced to live with a cumbersome employee-discharge process that allows workers to remain on the payroll during termination procedures that can last between four and nine months. What’s particularly galling is that the rule applies only to counties with more than 500,000 people. Milwaukee is the only one of those, and so it’s the only place in the state burdened by this requirement.