MORGANTOWN – The Monongalia County Commission said Wednesday they remain committed to standing up an independent human resources department for the county.
They’re asking the county’s other elected officials to get on board.
The discussion came in response to public comments offered by former Morgantown mayor and council member Marti Shamberger.
Shamberger felt compelled to speak after watching last week’s commission meeting, which she perceived to be “a little contentious.”
The commission voted last week to end the county’s group health insurance plan in favor of an Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement, or ICHRA, starting Dec. 31.
That meeting, Shamberger continued, left her with questions about what the county is doing for its employees in terms of human resources.
“It just made me reflect on last week’s meeting and wonder if you actually have an HR department. If you do, HR – and this is from past years of experience serving at WVU – if you do have HR, it can mean things to many different people. It could just be payroll; an insurance office. It could be employee relations. It could be compensation and classification or information systems. So, I think those are things to consider if you’re thinking of developing an HR department,” Shamberger said, adding, “I think you have a lot of wonderful, dedicated employees, several sitting in the room right now, and I know in other offices, too. They’re dedicated to the county.”
The commissioners indicated they’re fully on board with everything she had to say.
Commissioner Sean Sikora said the commission has engaged in a lengthy process to implement a county HR office – up to and including identifying space within the courthouse and initiating interviews in search of a director.
In the meantime, the county has utilized consulting firm AlignHR for issues that arise requiring a higher level of expertise, including the adoption of a new employee handbook in June 2024.
“But we all agree that’s not enough,” Sikora said. “We want to have a fully functional, independent HR department.”
Sikora said the process has moved at “a glacial pace,” and explained “It would move a lot faster if we had any support from the other elected officials.”
As an example, he said the commission has received no input and no formal acknowledgement of the aforementioned handbook despite a formal letter asking each official to provide a signature of approval.
In the end, the only control the commission has over elected officers – sheriff, county clerk, assessor, circuit clerk and prosecutor – is the annual setting of their respective office budgets. Elected officials are under no obligation to implement the approved handbook and would ultimately be under no obligation to utilize a county HR department.
“We can’t tell them how to run their office, but we would like them to join in and participate in providing consistent, repetitive support so that everybody is treated the same … We have been pushing for a long time to move forward, and it would move a lot faster if we had the support of the other elected officials. But, regardless, we have taken a stance that whether they’re on board or not, we’re moving forward,” Sikora said, explaining that once the HR office is in place, employees in the various offices should “rise up and say, ‘Hey, we want that support, too.’”
Following the meeting, it was stated that the commission is not looking to tell officers who they must interview, hire or fire, but provide some level of transparency to the process.
Speaking as one elected official, Assessor Mark Musick said he’s adopted the handbook – with the addition of his own policies, as is his purview – even if he hasn’t provided the commission a document stating as much.
As for human resources, Musick said he’s not opposed to the idea, but he feels there’s likely additional conversations to be had about what exactly will fall to HR and what will continue to be handled by the elected officials.
“I’ve always wondered why a county of this size didn’t have an HR department. I come from a background where everywhere I’ve been, there’s been HR, and it’s so helpful in so many ways,” he said. “My take on it in county government is, you look at it and say, ‘what role would HR play?’ I think sometimes that’s what’s taken as hesitancy.”
For example, according to Musick, having an HR department available to handle things like the employee Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) process may be seen as a benefit to elected officials while turning over the interview and hiring process would likely get a lot of pushback.
“I’m not answering for any of my co-elected officials. I’m just saying in general, it’s an opinion. We, and I assume that this is how it would go, we as elected officials, everybody wants to do their own interviews and their own hiring process because those people will work for your office,” he said.
Sheriff Todd Forbes said he’s not participated in any meetings or discussions on the pros and cons of an HR department or an employee handbook since taking office Jan. 1.
“As a civil servant, I can say I would always be in favor of what best serves the needs of the citizens,” he said.
Monongalia County has approximately 265 full-time employees. That number swells to about 300 with the inclusion of permanent part-time employees and seasonal hires.
Commissioner Tom Bloom said he’s amazed the county has been able to get by this long without dedicated human resources.
“It is frustrating that the elected officials could be more supportive of this direction. The problem is no matter what happens with an elected official, the three county commissioners are responsible legally to pay the bills, the lawsuits, and so on. So, it would be really helpful if everyone was on the same page,” he said. “The changes have been so amazingly different, from how it was years ago, that there’s so many new laws and regulations. It would be great to have a separate entity for HR.”
