Vacuum exists among top ranks of EDC
By Kathryn Reed
El Dorado County is lacking leadership. There is no permanent chief administrative officer, no permanent assistant chief administrative officer, no IT director, no risk manager, and no chief deputy county counsel.
The county for more than a year has had an interim CAO – which is the top position.
It won’t be until January at the earliest that supervisors Sue Novasel and Brian Veerkamp present to their colleagues the names of firms that could be hired to find a CAO. Impeding the process today are the holidays and the fact papers have been filed to recall all five supervisors. The latter could make the pool of candidates small.
Novasel said she hopes three to five CAO candidates would be interviewed in March or April.
There has been no explanation as to why the board has been so slow to take any action until now.
Pamela Knorr, current human resources chief, had been appointed interim CAO in November 2014 after the board essentially fired Terri Daly. Knorr had the position until June, at which time the board appointed Larry Combs acting chief administrative officer.
Combs makes $92,000 a year to work 20 hours a week. In addition to this he collects $185,167.92 a year from Sutter County and a $13,689.60 from Merced County. The latter two figures are his respective pensions from having been CAO in those counties. The Sutter allocation will soon top $190,000 with cost of living adjustments.
Combs’ decisions as CAO of Sutter County have the state now asking for $3.1 million because of MediCal overcharges and other unauthorized expenses, the Appeal Democrat newspaper reported in November. Sutter is a tiny county and that kind of hit to its budget would be similar to El Dorado County having to come up with $6 million.
Combs is also chair of the California Statewide Communities Development Authority. This group oversees the California PACE Program or Property Assessed Clean Energy. In September the supervisors agreed to implement this program. It is free except for administrative costs, which were not disclosed in the staff report. He is not paid for his work on CSCDA, so it is it not legally a conflict of interest for Combs to have recommended the county work with this group.
Instead of waiting for the Board of Supervisors to hire a CAO, Combs is looking for an assistant. Most head honchos like to pick their subordinates. This likely won’t be the case in El Dorado County.
“We were hoping to be able to hire the assistant CAO when we hire a permanent CAO, but that process is just beginning,” Novasel told Lake Tahoe News. “We feel it is better to go out for an assistant CAO now rather than wait.”
Michael Ciccozzi has been on loan from the County Counsels Office to be acting CAO. That office wants him back.
“He didn’t want to apply for CAO so we thought it best to get another assistant, so Larry is out looking for a good assistant,” Novasel said.
Combs did not return multiple phone calls so it is not known what he is looking for in an assistant, when he hopes to have that person on board or what type of background check might be done on this future employee.
When it came to doing the background check on Combs, Novasel said the county’s Human Resources Department conducted it. There was never any background check done on Knorr, though, who heads the HR Department and was fired as CAO in Alpine County.
Lack of background checks or ones without any substance are the norm in El Dorado County.
It’s possible this may change. Novasel said the firm that is hired for the permanent CAO search would do the background check on people the county might hire for that position.
Considering the amount of scandal and controversy surrounding the current ‘band’ occupying these positions it is no wonder that no decent applicant would be prepared to take on anything to do with El Dorado County.
The fix is in and all the positions are filled with people and their cohorts that are up for re call for a variety of reasons.
Some of these reasons actually include jail time and most of the RATS have already ‘jumped ship’.
Once again leaving the hard working voters trying to survive holding the bag.
Unbelievable! El Dorado County management is a discrace. They should make the soap opera “El Dorado County” and use the money to revamp the County Administration. More folks need to take an activist role and demand these fools do a better job or leave. I hope these idiots read this (if indeed, they CAN read!). Very sad.
Where is the grand jury when they could do some real positive work to clean out the corruption in our county instead of going after politically motivated witch hunts. They can publish the report as soon as they are done investigating the malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance of both elected and appointed officials. The grand jury can publish immediately after writing the report and not wait until end of their term.
Let’s get with it grand jury and do your job.
The GJ system is flawed and fueled by political process and needs to be permanently disbanded until such time as it is not overseen by an elected office holder, in this case and in most counties, it is an elected judge who is usually very political and “supervises” what the GJ will do outside of routine matters. People have demanded change for years and background checks of appointed department heads, if it is being changed now for the better, good and about time. Using an executive search firm and conducting interviews and checks where the candidate previously worked is key and would have saved this county millions. The problem has been the county has suffered from one Corrupt Board after another.