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MEMORANDUM
TO: Board of Supervisors
FROM: Carol J. Huchingson, County Administrative Officer
DATE: August 28, 2018
SUBJECT: Consideration of a Resolution Establishing Temporary Alternative Office Hours for County offices located in and surrounding the Lake County Courthouse
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Your Board is aware that California Government Code section 24260 empowers your Board to set office hours for the transaction of County business. At present, standard County public office hours are Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm, per section 2-2, 2.1 of Article I, Chapter 2, of the Lake County Code. Noon hour closures are permitted under limited “Extraordinary circumstances,” and any other departures must be approved by your Board.
As relevant background for this item, you will also recall that November 7, 2017, your Board clarified that departments may initiate a request for temporary alternative Office Hours under “Persistent extraordinary circumstances,” by preparing a draft Resolution for your Board’s consideration. That action did not delegate authority to set Office Hours to County departments, nor did that policy usurp or negate your Board’s authority to establish the hours for County offices. Rather, it provided a clear process for proactive measures on the part of County departments.
You are additionally very aware that the County’s already dire financial condition continues to worsen, and thus far, we have been unsuccessful in our pursuit of new revenue streams. The rising Minimum Wage and employee salaries currently estimated at 75% of those of comparable counties, continued slow recovery of our property and transient occupancy tax bases and uncertainty surrounding federal geothermal royalties historically provided to Counties are but a few examples of coming challenges. We are also still relatively early in the 2018 wildfire season, and the Ranch, River and Pawnee Fires have ravaged County lands. Since 2015, well over half of our landmass has burned, and nearly 5.5% of Lake County’s housing supply, a severe assault to our property tax revenues. Unfortunately, conditions conducive to wildfire remain.
Business as usual is no longer an option. With departments operating with an average 20% staff vacancy rate, low morale and repeated disasters further affecting growing workloads, the time is now to implement alternative business practices.
In response, the attached Resolution proposes the following temporary public hours for all County offices in the Lake County Courthouse building, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport, and select surrounding and satellite offices of the County of Lake, for the period of September 11, 2018-March 10, 2019:
• 8:00am-5:00pm, every day except Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
As you know, there is precedent for local governments taking such a measure within our County’s borders. The Cities of Clearlake and Lakeport both brought forth Friday closures during tough financial times, and elected to maintain Monday-Thursday public availability in spite of successfully obtaining new revenue streams.
This six-month period will serve as a pilot for your Board’s consideration of appropriate hours for County offices moving forward. If a permanent change becomes desirable or necessary at some time in the future, your Board would make that change by amending your Office Hours Ordinance.
Because the intention is to allow departments as much focused time as possible to address already extremely heavy workloads, staff requests that your Board not impose additional reporting requirements. Standard departmental performance measures will allow appropriate insight into the effects of these Friday public closures, and my office will seek input from Department Heads before this matter is revisited by your Board in March.
FISCAL IMPACT: _X_ None __Budgeted __Non-Budgeted
Estimated Cost:
Amount Budgeted:
Additional Requested:
Annual Cost (if planned for future years):
FISCAL IMPACT (Narrative): None
STAFFING IMPACT (if applicable): None
Recommended Action
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Adopt the Resolution Establishing Temporary Alternative Office Hours for County offices located in and surrounding the Lake County Courthouse.