Time to thaw county hiring process

It's a question that's been asked dozens of times at Putnam County Council meetings in the last several years.

"Are we in a hiring freeze?"

Are we, indeed? The question has more than one answer, depending on how you look at it.

By the book, the county remains under a hiring freeze enacted by the Putnam County Commissioners and Council in May 2009. With the state still reeling from the previous year's economic downturn, Putnam County was saddled with more than a $1 million budget reduction.

The commissioners and council acted accordingly, ceasing hires until further notice.

But things improved, as they tend to do, and the county reached the point of further notice. With improved economic conditions, the commissioners and council resumed approving new hires, but only if it was just replacing a departing employee and the department head appeared before both boards for their approval.

All of which means that in the truest sense of the word, Putnam County government is not under a hiring freeze. Instead, hiring is delayed by a form of oversight that has now run its course.

Tuesday's county council meeting was a great example. Mired deep in the council agenda was the Putnam County Sheriff's Department, represented that evening by Chief Deputy Phil Parker.

Parker was there for what amounted to a 30-second request. He asked to fill a full-time jailer position.

Such a request, coming from any department, is rarely greeted with more than one or two questions from the council:

Is this a new position? (No.)

Is the money in the budget? (Yes.)

A motion, second and unanimous approval, and Parker's reason for being at the meeting was over, but not before waiting through an hour of unrelated matters.

Is this efficient use of our tax dollars?

What's even worse is that by now, three days later, there are almost certainly new vacancies in some county office. Yet the office holder or appointed department head cannot simply hire a new employee at will.

Instead, the department in question must get on the agendas of both boards and wait until Monday, Feb. 1 for the next commissioners meeting and Tuesday, Feb. 16 for the council to reconvene.

That's no way to serve the people of Putnam County.

In an unrelated matter on Tuesday, Council President Darrel Thomas took an admirable stand. Thomas said he was tired of making "emergency" decisions via telephone for department heads who want to move forward on a matter before the next scheduled meeting.

Instead, the council members are polled, one at a time, to make sure majority approval will be there for the next meeting.

"Most of the telephone calls I get require a decision to be made," Thomas said, "and I have six other council members I need to bounce ideas off of.

"We are guilty of not being transparent."

With that, Thomas declared he would not take part in such decision making any longer. Instead, such questions will need to be the subject of special sessions or simply wait until the next meeting.

As reporters, we are fans of transparency. We applaud Thomas and look forward to the improved public discourse he is promoting.

However, we also suspect that there would be a lot fewer emergencies if department heads could simply make their own hires. Faced with a wait of several weeks just to fill an open position, why wouldn't they call ahead?

All three commissioners who passed the hiring freeze are now gone, as are four of seven councilmen.

The time has come for our new leaders to assert their voices and thaw out this seven-year-old hiring freeze.