Grays Harbor County may soon pick a new official to oversee its day-to-day operations, but whether or not it can bear the cost, and how it might change government structure, is still uncertain.

About one month ago, the Grays Harbor County Board of Commissioners hired a consultant to assist with the recruitment of an administrator, who would eventually take on management duties — some currently delegated to commissioners and various department heads — of Washington’s 19th largest county.

Representatives from GMP Consultants, along with commissioners and other county officials, discussed the next steps for the recruitment process at a special meeting Wednesday.

Greg Prothman of GMP suggested commissioners must first decide on the scope of the new position before moving forward with the recruitment process.

“I think that’s where the key to the process really lies: How much of your authority do you want to delegate, what aspects of the organization do you want this person to manage, and what is the reporting structure going to look like from this point forward?” Prothman said.

“There’s a whole laundry list of things to think through,” he added.

County governments generally operate under two structures: council-elected executive, where voters choose an official with some kind of veto or legislative power, much like the mayor of a city; and council-appointed administrative, where county commissioners pick an administrator to streamline coordination between departments and make recommendations, but who has no legislative authority. Grays Harbor County uses the latter.

Prothman suggested commissioners employ another third party consultant to help sort out those details, as well as examine which county ordinances might need amendments to allow for a shift in government structure. Those would ultimately be presented to the board of commissioners.

He also suggested employing an interim county administrator — likely a retiree of the same position — who could assist with the transition of government structure during the recruitment process.

According to Prothman, counties with administrators run “remarkably smoother overall,” which may ultimately result in a savings in spending on personnel. Commissioners currently oversee 11 different departments, each operating under its own director. But because of workload, that’s only a “high-level” view, said District 1 Commissioner Jill Warne, making it “really hard to get in too deep in anything.”

“They (a county administrator) would have the time and knowledge to get more entrenched in the department and figure out if there’s things we could be doing better,” she said in an interview

Warne said she recently participated in legislative steering committee meetings of the Washington Association of Counties, where dozens of other county leaders “strongly recommended” employing an administrator, including those from Mason County, which recently made the switch.

Warne also said the move has to “make sense financially, it’s gotta save us money in the long run.” That was the primary concern of District 3 Commissioner Vickie Raines.

The county has operated for most of 2023 without a budget director, one of its 11 department heads. The position was vacant when commissioners began administrator discussions, leaving open the possibility of rolling it into duties of the administrator, and ultimately saving money. But the county filled the position last month out of necessity, meaning all director positions are currently full.

Raines said she wanted to see a closer examination of how a new administrator position would fit within the county’s budget, citing a current $3 million general fund deficit. While “not opposed” to the idea of an administrator, Raines said she wants to be sure that benefits of hiring an administrator would outweigh the costs, estimating the new position would make a salary of $160,000, plus benefits.

“If we had the money to do it, it certainly would take a lot off of my plate and the other commissioners’ plates, but I have to be confident that it’s going to work and we can afford it, ultimately,” she said.

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.