A Coup at the County

POST COMMISSIONERS WANT SAY IN HIRING AND FIRING

There is a minor coup d’état happening at the county commission. The two post commissioners, Earl Johnson and Larry Joe Sosebee, want to horn in on Chairman Bill Simonds’ authority to hire and fire department heads. 

Currently, the chairman, as the chief executive officer of the county, supervises all county employees and has the sole authority to hire and fire them, including department heads. The post commissioners want to take away his authority to hire and fire department heads and give it to the commission as a whole. 

Bad idea. Name one successful organization that does not give the person in charge the power to hire and fire key subordinates. Apple would not be successful without Steve Jobs having the authority to hire and fire his key managers. The person in charge of running an organization needs the power to pick his key subordinates. Any management expert will tell you that.

One proponent of the plan suggested that’s the way it works in corporate America—boards of directors hire and fire managers who are subordinate to the company’s CEO all the time. That’s not true. Most boards of directors do not have the authority to go behind the CEO to hire or fire his subordinate managers. No competent CEO would accept a position where he is held responsible for the success of an enterprise but does not have the authority to hire and fire his top managers.

There is nothing novel about Fannin County’s form of government. It is for all intents a strong mayor form of government where an elected mayor is the chief executive official. In a strong mayor form of government, the mayor has the exclusive authority to hire and fire employees, including department heads.

Proponents of the plan say that the chairman will still have the authority to manage the department heads; he just can’t hire and fire them without the approval of at least one of the post commissioners. Johnson and Sosebee both own businesses. I bet they don’t run their businesses that way. Management by committee is a recipe for disaster.

One of Johnson’s concerns is that department heads serve at the will of the chairman and can be hired and fired at his whim. That’s true for just about every employer and employee in Georgia. With few exceptions, all employees are terminable at will in Georgia. Why should Fannin County department heads be any different than other employees in this state? 

How is the proposed new system any better? If the post commissioners have their way, department heads will serve at the whim of three politi­cians. That brings politics into management decisions. I bet that’s a com­forting thought for Fannin County department heads. 

Johnson makes it sound like a commission chairman has an incentive to make arbitrary employment decisions because he has sole authority to hire and fire department heads. But that’s not true. A chairman’s success at the polls depends on how well the county runs under his watch. That sounds like a strong incentive to make good employment decisions. Besides, why do Johnson and Sosebee believe that three commissioners will make any better hiring and firing decisions?

The post commissioners’ real complaint is that they feel uninformed about county affairs because department heads won’t talk to them. If the post commissioners are not getting the information they need to do their jobs, that’s a legitimate beef and Chairman Simonds must bear part of the blame. As the county’s chief executive officer, he has a duty to keep the commission fully informed and to provide information if asked. If that’s not happening, then he’s not doing his job.

But there are other and better ways to solve that issue than to take away the chairman’s authority to hire and fire depart-ment heads.