Grand jury slams El Dorado County HR Dept.
By Kathryn Reed
A highly-critical assessment of El Dorado County’s Human Resources Department was released this week by the grand jury.
The report’s title is “Board of Supervisors neglects Human Resources”.
“Members of the Board of Supervisors fail to comply with the legal requirement to notify the HR Department when they become aware of alleged unlawful activity against one of their employees,” the report says.
It points out how the same issues the civil grand jury found in 2006-07 are occurring today.
“Human Resource policies are nonexistent or out of date, employee classifications are suspect, significant work is being contracted out to private contractors and no effort has yet been initiated to satisfy various requirements of state and federal employment law,” the report says.
Pam Knorr
Part of the problem is there have been four HR directors since 2009. Today Pam Knorr, who is also the acting chief administrative officer, runs the department. She took over the CAO duties in November when Terri Daly was run out of office by the Board of Supervisors and was appointed in February to have the job for one year.
Knorr was hired by Daly to be in charge of the Human Resources Department. No background check had ever been done on Knorr. Knorr has served in various positions in Amador, Napa, Placer and Alpine counties. Before coming to El Dorado County in September 2013 she was CAO in Alpine County for five years. An employee from Alpine County has since filed a lawsuit against her.
Knorr did not return a call from Lake Tahoe News.
“Employees fear that a complaint submitted to the HR Department will not be kept confidential and they may be subject to retaliation. The HR director acknowledged that this a reasonable fear, based upon past behavior,” the report says.
Besides recommending the county follow state and federal law, it also believes Knorr should be shown the door.
Recommendations include:
• The Board of Supervisors should aggressively seek a new and qualified chief administrative officer.
• The Board of Supervisors should appoint a qualified manager of Human Resources.
• The Human Resources function should be centralized under a manager reporting to the chief administrative officer.
“I believe that the Board of Supervisors is doing our due diligence to make necessary changes within our organization to ensure that the concerns of the grand jury as well as doing what is best for our employees are addressed. Change does not happen overnight — especially when it comes to cultural climate change within a large organization,” Supervisor Sue Novasel told Lake Tahoe News. “I am confident that the county is on the right track to making the long overdue and appropriate changes to our organization.”
Novasel said she did not disagree with report. She believes the hiring of an assistant CAO and risk manager will help Knorr be able to focus on HR more.
The lack of a strong HR Department has been impacting several departments.
Without a functioning HR Department, the county’s legal team is relegated to deal with many issues that come up. This, the grand jury says, has led to more of a punitive reaction to complaints than problem solving.
“Because county counsel is acting as de facto HR director, legal work that could be handled in house is contracted out. The county spends significant sums of money on outside consultants and attorneys for HR related issues. The county has spent significant sums of money on private consultants identifying personnel issues but has taken only the initial steps toward resolving the issues identified,” the grand jury found.
The report goes on to say, “Failure to strengthen the Human Resources Department has led to personnel issues being inadequately and improperly addressed by individual managers or supervisors who do not understand their obligations under California employment law. El Dorado County has a reputation for poor employer-employee practices. It does not attract the most qualified applicants for employment.”
No employee manual exists and training is virtually non-existent.
The civil grand jury usually makes its findings public in June, but instead posted five reports this week. In addition to the HR report, there are ones on the jails, Ponderosa football field, El Dorado Hills Community Services District, and outpatient mental health.
A call was placed to the grand jury office. No one answered and it was not possible to leave a message.
Thank you to the citizens who sit on the Grand Jury. Telling the BOS they have the same HR problems as ’06-’07 has to be frustrating as the Board has not responded appropriately. Now, is anyone surprised that two new position are being created for this problem? Over 100 additional County employees hired over the past few years and they still can’t get-it together and do their jobs. As the GJ says – it’s the Board.
The budget shortfall is the real priority now as is controlling or cancelling any new large spending projects. There has always been a number of captains trying to pilot this ship and now an on-going fall out from the power struggle that was the former CAO and cronies against the Board that appointed her, after numerous warnings were given not to hire her and her cronies who, and the Board was told, would do exactly as they did in Amador. This all turned out to be true and the mess will take time to sort out and this is not new, but it is far better to be rid of the problem people who were in the CAO’s office from Amador. The contracting out of HR legal work has been going on for decades, nothing new there. There is a difference in consultant work that is optional and legal HR employee law cases. This county has always been a strange assortment of dysfunctional power hungry people as long as anyone can remember and as much as some things change they also stay the same.
Unbelievable. They hired these people without proper vetting (which would have uncovered their previous overspending), they ran the county into the ground by overspending, they fired two of them and put the last one standing in charge. And the (overspending) problems persist. And now the conflict-of-interest Supervisor thinks that the answer is to spend more money and that the county is “on track”? You have to be kidding. This is so incredibly disheartening.
What’s so surprising?
The president was hired without proper vetting, and then rehired for a second term. All HIS records are sealed, and you have no idea where he was throughout a huge chunk of his life and you don’t care. Why so upset about the same thing happening in the county?
Huh? Assume much, Dogula? Where do you get your material?
Well known facts, Dumbfounded. All of his school records are sealed, so nobody knows what kind of courses he took or what his grades were. Nobody who was at Columbia during the time he was supposedly there ever saw him in classes that he supposedly took. We don’t know how he applied for his college loans, we don’t know whether he claimed foreign student status, we don’t know squat about the guy running the country. If you have access to those records, I’d love for you to share the info.
Facts are funny things. They are like Schrodinger’s cat, they can be alive or dead at the same time. It is observation that is necessary.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/obamas-sealed-records/
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/bookmarks/fact-checking-and-debunking/the-debunkers-guide-to-obama-conspiracy-theories/
The question isn’t about “facts”, it is about the relevance to the current article about the County woes. They are myriad, but there is absolutely zero connection to the County and to your off-topic rants and subsequent snarky comments. The “same thing” hasn’t happened in the County in any way whatsoever.
On top of the vetting process being ignored by the Board, they were warned by people from Amador, and there were the reports from Amador’s Grand Jury. Now, exactly what was warned would happen, did happen. Millions appear to be misspent and missing and the budget is in tatters. Why doesn’t the GJ of this county investigate possible charges against the previous Board, especially the one Supervisor in charge of hiring the CAO, starting with gross negligence and he ignored the information, and also investigate the former CAO and her cronies? Saying everything is still a mess, doesn’t help clean it up as much as real actions do.
I don’t often agree with your comments, Justice. However, you are spot on as regards action. The BOS has routinely ignored the hard work of the Grand Jury and continued to operate in a (arguably) criminal manner. The reality of the spending vs revenue issue cannot be fixed with words, or hiring more people.
Amazing to me is how you become HR director with a civil rights lawsuit against you from your previous job. Then you get promoted im doing something wrong I tell you. Sounds like Knorr did the same thing to Alpine regarding spending and personnel. With no background check you get what you get. Must be nice to not be accountable for your actions and continue to make insane amounts of money for screwing things up. Hopefully the board hears from people to stop this nonsense and send them down the road and start with some truly qualified people to fix all the issues before its too late.