County eliminates human resources department

_{By ELIZABETH LADEN}

FREMONT COUNTY, ID. — In a unanimous vote, Fremont County Commissioners today (Monday, Feb. 8) eliminated the Human Resources Department. In doing so, they put Cindy Skoy out of work. Skoy has been the the department’s director since the commission created the department in March 2008.

In a phone interview Monday, Skoy said she learned about the decision right when the commissioners announced it at the meeting. They claimed they eliminated the department to save the county $90,000 and after City Clerk Abbie Mace assured them she could do Skoy’s job. Skoy said she has saved the county hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Without citing a statute to support their assertion, commissioners claimed that state law requires that all county personnel records must be maintained under the county clerk's office, not under an HR department sanctioned by a county commission. And, other Idaho counties have HR departments under county commissioners that maintain personnel records. Commissioners have not explained why they created a department if it was not in compliance with state law.

“It’s a farce,” Skoy said, “and everyone in the courthouse knows it’s a farce.” Skoy’s said her salary was $54,000 a year, which is at the low end of salaries paid to human resource directors, especially with her nearly 20 years of experience.

Skoy said neither Mace nor any other current county employee has the education and experience to do her job. She said she has saved the county thousands of dollars by introducing numerous cost saving measures and efficiencies, including saving $360,000 by changing the county’s policy of paying deductibles for employee health insurance. She saved an additional $170,000 on medical insurance and $7,000 on dental insurance simply by changing insurance providers.

She said she has also established policies and procedures that meet legal requirements for such things as health care privacy issues, and has streamlined the process for initiating medical claims. She has implemented a wellness program to help employees maintain good health and reduce insurance claims.

She said employee medical care privacy rights will be compromised without an HR department that follows federal privacy regulations.

Skoy said she believes the real reason for the commissioners’ action was because Mace has never liked the HR department, and the commissioners have very little knowledge about what she has done for the county. She said Romrell has told her all he wants to hear from her is a “‘Reader’s Digest version’” of what she does. Yet he and the other commissioners, she said, agreed to shell out taxpayers dollars to send her, Mace, and a payroll clerk to counseling. Skoy said counseling was not needed: what was needed was for people to do their jobs.

Skoy said there are serious differences in how county employees do their jobs, and taxpayers should be concerned about this and ask where their money is going. Some employees are never at their desks, she said or arrive extremely late and wander around, while others work hard and do all they can to get their jobs done. She said a dividing line between hard workers and people who do not put much into their jobs is often that elected officials and their friends seem to have more job security.

“If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got,” said Skoy.

Abbie Mace and Paul Romrell were in a meeting when this article was posted. They did not respond to a request for comments.

This is the third department the county eliminated under Romrell's watch that had undertones of being more political than to benefit citizens. Commissioners eliminated the Road and Bridge Department, thereby getting rid of its sometimes controversial supervisor, Weldon Reynolds. It resurfaced under the Public Works Department. Commissioners also eliminated the Economic Development Department, putting its director, Kathy Coon, out of work.

This is part of the online edition of The Island Park News.

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