Google, Phone, and Self-Awareness Could Save Pennington County Thousands

The Rapid City Journal reports that Pennington County is considering paying human resources consulting firm Condrey and Associates of Athens, Georgia, to study the county's salary scale and job desccriptions:

County Commissioner Nancy Trautman believes the county could benefit from a salary study and a staffing level comparison as a tool to be used for future planning. Currently, the county doesn't know if its job classifications and salaries are correct or adequate, she said.

"We don't know if we have the right staff to accomplish what we need to. We don't really have a base," Trautman said. "It'll cost us money, of course, to get the base established. But in planning in any business, you have to start somewhere" [Scott Aust, "Salary, Staffing Study May Be in the Works for Pennington County," Rapid City Journal, 2008.08.25].

Condrey and Associates apparently makes its money convincing governmental agencies across the country that you need to hire someone to tell you whether your organization's job classifications and salaries are "correct" and "adequate." I would suggest that knowing whether your county has the right staff to accomplish what you need to do isn't an unreasonable do-it-yourself project:

• To find out what other counties are paying their workers and how they describe their jobs, call up a few of your friends in the South Dakota Association of County Officials and ask.
• Google "county job description," start reading.
• Look at your own staff. Are you recruiting and retaining the best people? When you hire, what percent of your first picks say "Yes!" and what percent say, "Sorry, got a better offer in Wyoming"? How long do those first picks stick around?
• Accomplishing what you need to do? Walk through your courthouse. Talk to your people and your residents. Are there backlogs (other than those caused by Pierre)? What frustrates your employees? What frustrates your citizens? What personnel changes could solve those frustrations?

If you're a county commissioner, it's your job to figure those things out. It's not hard. You don't need some out-of-stater's paid opinion to back up the conclusion you can probably come to yourself after doing a little homework and talking to your own people.

(Let's see, that's about 15 minutes... $100 an hour... Pennington County, send your check for $25 to Madville Times Consulting, 1883 Cottonwood Cove Trail, Lake Herman, SD 57042. ;-) )