Tensions were up as the Faribault County Commissioners held a special work session on Tuesday morning, April 8. There were some tense moments as tempers flared.

Talk about the duties and structure of the county coordinator position in Faribault County led to a heated discussion and the flare-up of tempers when the County Board met for a work session on Tuesday, April, 8.

Although the work session may have been meant to bring about some kind of consensus on some specific matters, by the time the session ended there appeared to be more hostility in the room than when the session began.

County attorney Cameron Davis had opened the meeting by reminding the board they had created the position of a county coordinator over a year ago.

“Over the past year and a half I think there have been several, what I would call ‘growing pains’ with trying to understand what the role of the coordinator should be and what the role of the coordinator is,” Davis commented. “I think there have been some lessons learned in that year and a half. I have been put in the position of having different board members come to me and ask for opinions on how the board should function with respect to the personnel committee, what duties the personnel committee should have – what role it should have.”

Davis continued by saying that a lot of these issues are not really specifically prescribed by statute.

“There are some statutory provisions to give the board guidance,” Davis continued. “But, to the extent that a lot of the questions I’m being asked to provide opinions for aren’t really statutory questions – they are more how the board does business questions – it is my position that a discussion among board members to help the five of you decide what form of management and organization you want to use going forward and how the personnel committee fits into that and how the personnel committee reports back to the board.”

Davis shared the process involves balancing many different things including the employee’s right to privacy and the board’s need to know what is happening inside the county with different personnel to make sure the board can make informed decisions about policy.

Susan Hansen, who is an outside legal consultant for Faribault County who deals primarily with employment related issues, attended the first hour of the meeting by Zoom and reviewed open meeting laws while also addressing privacy concerns.

It was after Hansen left and the discussion continued that the tension in the commissioner’s room seemed to grow.

“My argument is with the job description of the county coordinator,” commissioner Tom Loveall stated.

Loveall also shared his feeling about the personnel committee.

“In general, my concern has been for awhile, and I have been expounding on this, that the personnel committee is meeting on a whole host of issues. We now know more clearly that hiring and personnel is more messy and we would have to do that out front and we’d have to get direction up front and we’d have to trust that the direction is going through all this. That’s the metric she (lawyer Susan Hansen) laid out,” Loveall said. “But certainly those things in the narrow band that she talked about – that those are open to closed session. I think we need to have more closed sessions for when the personnel committee is meeting and keeping us current on negotiations with labor, lawsuits, whatever. I want to utilize the closed meetings that fit within those bands more often.”

“Anytime there has been anything, whether it would have been a lawsuit or anything that can go into closed session in regards to the personnel board, I’ve never seen them not do that,” board member Bruce Anderson responded. “Since I have been on the board for the past four-plus years, I have never seen that happen. But, trying to go into closed sessions for allegations – yes we should. But for hiring, no. It’s such a narrow deal and that is the biggest trouble we had here. We have to be careful with the privacy. Trust is key. We all got elected by our districts and now we have to trust each other. When there are two people on that personnel board, they should be trusted and we are losing that trust.”

“My thought on this is that we, those of us who worked on writing a job description for the county coordinator and changing from an elected auditor/treasurer/coordinator to being a stand-alone coordinator, knew that none of us on this board had HR experience and also that we were not willing to be here everyday as well,” commissioner Bill Groskreutz said. “But to provide someone who could do those things without being in that administrator position allowed the board to retain responsibilities.”

Later on, Loveall again voiced his displeasure with the current situation.

“Where I do have the problem is one, the individual who is the coordinator; two is the structure of the personnel agreement or the job classification. I think it got to be too administrative and I voted against it at that point,” Loveall said. “I think there are multiple issues here and I question how well it is running here, quite frankly.”

“As Susan said, the best counties in the state that she works with, runs with a personnel committee,” Anderson interjected.

“Well, Susan is not elected in Faribault County,” Loveall replied.

“She gives us pretty good information,” Anderson responded.

“We are more hands-on than most of the counties around us,” Young said.

Next, there was a heated discussion about how complaints by employees are handled.

All of the commissioners agreed that any employee certainly has the right to speak directly to their commissioner. However, Young, Groskreutz and Anderson pointed out there is a system and process in place to handle employee complaints, including going to their union.

“Maybe they are afraid to go to the powers that be, not necessarily the commissioners, but the next level,” commissioner Gertrude Paschke said. “Maybe they are frightened because they are afraid they are not going to be heard.”

“When an employee of the county wants to talk to me directly about his job, or about what he sees going on, I think that is fair and I am going to defend that,” Loveall stated. “What I do with it is the question, whether I bring it to this board or I might say, get me more information about it. Is that an issue? If we’re saying that’s not allowed with a voice, I think that’s a mistake.”

“It’s our policy though, sir,” Hov responded.

With that, Loveall pounded his fist on his spot at the commissioner’s bench and said, “I got it that’s it’s our policy. Would you quit telling me what our policy is?”

Loveall continued with a loud voice while pointing his finger at Hov, “I’m telling you I’m tired of him coming in and telling me policy. We’re talking about changing policy.”

As board chairman Greg Young tried to regain control of the work session, Loveall continue to point his finger at Hov, “This is the problem, it is not your place to tell me policy. I understand the policy, I’m arguing for changing the policy.”

As the arguing continued, Hov said, “I am not going to take this violence.”

“I hit the table not you,” Loveall fired back.

“That’s not how we argue,” Hov answered.

Young was finally able to get control of the meeting.

“Let’s all respect each other,” Young remarked.

Young asked Davis for his thoughts on how to proceed.

“My only thought is this is exactly why I felt this work session needed to happen because I know there are very strong opinions on both sides of this and I think it is a fair debate,” Davis. “My hope is that the committee can come to a consensus on how to proceed because I think it does put your staff in a very difficult position if it’s getting mixed messages from the board. So I would hope there is a consensus that can come out of this from Brian all the way down to our newest hourly employee so they can have direction from the board on how to proceed because it puts your staff in a difficult position.”

Hansen had shared her knowledge of personal and private data, along with reasons to close a meeting, with the commissioners.

“When we think about personnel and employee matters, so much of the information regarding pending personnel matters is private data and those individual employees and those employees who have personnel matters pending have legal protections,” Hansen said. “The law in Minnesota provides individuals within the county can only have access to private personnel data if their specific duties and responsibilities require them to have access to that data. The regulations regarding that standard are fairly narrow. Curiosity about an employee is not a reason for anyone to get access to an employee’s data.”

She emphasized that simply closing a meeting to the public is not a way to be able to access private data.

“The open meeting law has limited reasons for closing meetings,” Hansen commented. “The law does not allow meetings to be closed simply because a board or committee is discussing a personnel matter. In order to close a meeting, the board or committee has to specifically meet the closure requirements under the open meeting law. Mere discussion of a personnel matter does not trigger the right to close a meeting.”

Loveall expressed his opinion that when a new hire is brought before the board for approval that the full board has a job duty or responsibility when it comes to approving the hire.

“Because we are going to vote to hire that person,” Loveall commented.

“Under the open meeting law there is a provision that says the governing body may discuss private data if it relates to an agenda item that is pending before the board and is reasonably necessary to conduct that agenda item,” Hansen said. “That is the standard in the open meeting law. Discussion of personnel data, in and of itself, is not a reason to close the meeting.”

Hansen expressed her opinion that the meeting could be closed to discuss the candidate being hired if it is an agenda item to hire that person, but not to discuss the other candidates who applied.

“In my work with 40-45 counties, the counties I see being the most successful from the standpoint of effective, efficient, streamlined administration is where the board acts as a policy making body and where the board delegates to either an administrator, a coordinator or a Human Resources manager the personnel issues,” Hansen concluded. “In my work with counties where board members are mired in the minutia of those personnel matters – those are the counties that I worry most about and that seem to have the most personnel issues. That’s my honest opinion and what I see in other counties.”