Upgrading Government

At a recent seminar on the future of Orange County government sponsored by the League of Women Voters, a member of last year’s Orange County Grand Jury repeated criticisms of county government and reiterated proposals for correcting the problems that the jury panel made when its term ended last June.

Former juror Ralph Bauer restated a recommendation that the county supervisors, who are in charge of their staffs, a dozen agency and department heads, and 85 boards and commissions, delegate more authority to the county administrative officer.

It makes good administrative sense to have agency and department heads reporting to the county’s chief executive officer, who should be making the daily decisions that carry out board policies. In a county of more than 2 million residents, beset by major urban problems, the supervisors should be directing their energies at setting goals, directions and policies rather than being tied down with day-to day management decisions.

Board Chairman Roger R. Stanton disagrees with the jury recommendation, as does the board. To delegate responsibility to a county manager form of government, as Stanton sees it, would “break the line of accountability from the electorate.”

Stanton is right when he says that the supervisors can’t “delegate responsibility to a non-elected person.” But the elected board hires and fires the county administrative officer, and giving that county executive broader duties in everyday decisions could make the county operation more efficient. It wouldn’t shift, or relieve, any supervisor from the ultimate responsibilities of the office.

The mere fact that the issue was raised and discussed at the league’s forum is an encouraging sign, giving added strength to the grand jury’s role of monitoring local government operations to help make government as efficient and responsive as possible.

Grand jury recommendations should be publicly discussed and seriously considered, but too often they are just filed and forgotten. There is no continuity from panel to panel, and often new juries study the same issues and come to the same conclusion as previous ones, only to have another panel start again at square one.

Stanton had an excellent suggestion that might help remedy that. Instead of the entire 19-member county grand jury serving a one-year term as it now does, Stanton said he would support 18-month staggered terms. That could not only help provide needed continuity but give jurors additional time to more deeply study complicated issues. It’s an idea the current grand jury panel should waste no time in exploring.