The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors took another step Tuesday toward restructuring its management team.
Supervisor Michael Antonovich has been pushing since September to eliminate the role of chief executive officer, which was established in 2007. His last effort to repeal a county ordinance that established that position and organized department clusters around specific policy concerns failed on a 2-3 vote.
Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, one of two new board members elected in November, backed Antonovich’s move today, and the board’s vote was unanimous.
Just what any new organizational chart will look like is still up in air. The opening for a CEO is still posted on the county’s website, and a spokesman said today that candidates are “welcome to apply.”
The CEO role was originally intended to centralize administration and coordinate work across departments, while freeing up the board to focus on policy.
Antonovich said that structure created too much bureaucracy and left the board removed from department heads who typically reported to deputy CEOs. He called for a reorganization that “facilitates increased communication and collaboration” and “streamlines governance and eliminates unnecessary layers of management.”
Not long after William Fujioka retired as CEO in November, interim CEO Sachi Hamai moved to make changes in the department. She eliminated five deputy CEO positions, put one executive in charge of Sheriff’s Department issues and positioned another as the interim head of the recently established Office of Child Protection.
In addition, the county is looking at consolidating its departments of Public Health, Mental Health and Health Services, which is responsible for the county hospital system.
The board directed its lawyers to draft language to repeal the 2007 ordinance and asked Hamai to recommend a more collaborative, less bureaucratic management structure.
Supervisor Hilda Solis indicated that there was some talk about assigning responsibility for specific policy clusters to individual supervisors and cautioned against that idea.
“There could be conflicts,” Solis said.
A report is expected back in 60 days.
— City News Service