Administrator Contract

Michigan state law generally has little to say on how counties like Ottawa County can utilize the County Administrator role in the operations of their counties. It generally gives us the authority to establish and then define what we want out of our Administrator. Since establishing the role of County Administrator, we have generally stuck to the parameters that state law affords Unified Counties as found in MCL 45.558. At its heart, our prescription for the County Administrator has been found in the Responsibilities and Duties section of the Contract with our County Administrator, especially in Sections 2 and 3:

Contract excerpt, John Gibbs, January 2023

In the Contract for the incoming Administrator, Patrick Waterman, there is a substantial change in how that role is foreseen:

This is a fairly drastic re-envisioning of the role for the Administrator that I find really quite troubling. Instead of supervising County departments and department heads, with the exception of elected officials and their officers, and appointing and removing all heads of departments, with approval of the Board, the new contract foresees that the Administrator will be able to hire and fire ALL County employees, with no Board oversight, and it is not clearly delineated that the Administrator would not have authority over elected officials.

I voted for Mr. Waterman, and believe that he will be a good administrator, but to upfront give him the outright power to hire and fire any and all employees and not to clearly spell out that the Administrator does not have authority over elected officials is frankly an invitation to future problems. I had hoped to see a set of Responsibilities and Duties that was that was even more narrowly drawn than before; this new contract goes in the exact opposite direction by granting the new Administrator expansive new powers that we have never allowed previously, and which I find damaging to the prospect for better governance in the future.

Absent significant changes, I will not be able to vote for the contract with the new administrator.