County boards have varied influence

With Flathead County’s many boards of directors, not all things are created equal.

Some boards fall exclusively under the jurisdiction of the county commissioners, but a good many of them have a surprising amount of autonomy. In other words, once the commissioners appoint members to some boards, they’re given full authority to call the shots. That includes hiring and firing department heads.

A recent case in point was the Fair Board’s recent firing of Fair Manager Jay Scott. That board’s decision not to renew Scott’s contract was not subject to commissioner approval.

The only influence the commissioners have over the Fair Board — and several other county boards — is the appointments they make to those boards.

“A lot of people have the perception that we have control over everything,” Commissioner Dale Lauman said. “I think there’s a lot of confusion out there.”

There is an overriding reason for this self-sufficiency among boards that has to do with efficiency and time management, County Administrative Officer Mike Pence said.

“The commissioners have a pretty significant workload,” Pence said. “They have a lot of responsibilities in multiple areas, so there’s merit with having these boards having a lot of authority.”

The Library Board is among the most independent boards, Deputy County Attorney Jonathan Smith said. Like the Fair Board, the Library Board has the ability to hire and fire the county library director, but the Library Board also has broader control over the library budget.

“What they put into their budget, the county commissioners don’t have the authority to change it,” he said. “The Library Board decides how to spend” the library budget.

A major legislative change in 1995 overhauled state rules pertaining to county boards and required counties to write resolutions and re-create certain boards using the new rules.

The law change included the county building commission, cemetery districts, fair board, mosquito-control board, museum board, park board, road districts, rodent-control board, solid-waste board, television district and weed management district. But it also allowed counties to create other administrative boards, districts and commissions not listed in state law. Flathead County used that law to create an Emergency Services Board, Smith said.

Some boards that initially were included in the 1995 law change, such as library boards, were removed due to lobbying efforts, he added.

A 2009 legislative law change further clarified the definition for a special district, noting that in addition to the districts listed in the 1995 law, the term “also includes any district or other entity formed to perform a single or limited number of functions by interlocal agreement.”

The Flathead City-County Health Board has jurisdiction over the county health administrator’s contract,

but an interlocal agreement between the city of Kalispell and the county requires that both the city and county have to approve the health budget, Smith said.

The county takes a leadership role, though, in operating the Health Department.

The Solid Waste Board used to have the ability to hire and fire the landfill manager, but a few years ago when the commissioners and that board agreed to create a new public works director position that also manages the Road Department, an agreement was made to share the duties of negotiating the public works director’s contract.

The Park Board is another independent county appendage that historically has had jurisdiction over the contract for the parks and recreation director. But through the years that position was merged with the weed director, and most recently building-maintenance duties were added to the job description.

“As a practical matter, the commissioners have some level of involvement” with the director of parks, recreation, weeds and building maintenance, Smith said.

Other boards, such as the Flathead County Planning Board, are purely advisory.

Board members recommend what action the commissioners should take on myriad requests such as subdivision approvals, conditional-use permits, and so on. But the Planning Board doesn’t have jurisdiction over the planning director’s contract; that duty falls to the commissioners.

The Board of Adjustment has yet a different set of duties. It’s a quasi-judicial body that adjudicates matters related to minor variances to zoning laws. That board’s decision is considered the final word, but can be appealed to the commissioners.

The County Airport Authority is one of the most autonomous boards, Lauman pointed out. The director of Glacier Park International Airport answers to the Airport Authority.

“We don’t even review their budget,” Lauman said.

 Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com