Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 32

My writings on that first year, or so, may not be in chronological order; these things all occurred, but sometimes in close proximity to each other and I may have them out of sequence. It doesn't change what happened, but I don't want you to think that if I put it out of order and you 'find out' about it that there was any falsehood intended.

As spring went on we had to divide our attention to other duties of the Office with only cursory overview of the Rajneesh.

Their population enlarged as the weather changed to a less hospitable climate; with it activity, but for the most part it was uneventful.

Our deputies served papers without interference. As the weeks went on, though, we did have some interesting situations arise, and we will discuss those in more detail, later.

The Rajneesh had a few people at all County Commission meetings. That wasn't a problem, but it did put a damper on one thing.

On the first meeting of the month the Department Heads were invited in to give a brief overview of what is happening in their agencies.

I looked forward to this when I heard about it. I wanted to hear how things were going with them and what they were doing as I just didn't know all the intricacies of County Government.

That first meeting I brought in a list of the things we were doing in the Office, trends in crime, etc.

What I heard, from the others though, were things like, 'everything is normal,' 'just the same things going on,' 'nothing new,' etc. The presence of the Rajneesh was hampering our open communication – not because we were trying to hide anything, but they would challenge some of the decisions; and make a nuisance of themselves.

Someone came up with the idea of a monthly meeting of the Department Heads and only ONE commissioner in one of our meeting rooms. It wasn't open to the public because there was not a quorum of Commissioners there and it was just information – not decision making – between departments. It was a relaxed and an enjoyable experience.

We were able to hear what was happening with each office or department and we were able to assist each other when we had issues or things that were bothering us.

The meetings were not mandatory. When the Department Head wasn't available he/she would sent his second in command or just not be represented.

As a result I learned a lot about the county's operation. I appreciated the cooperation between the departments and the affirmation of everyone's desire to do the best they could for the citizens.

One of the county committees I was on, as Sheriff, was the Wage and Classification committee. It was assigned the task of reviewing job descriptions and determining what wage scale they should be assigned.

I can't remember how many of us were on the committee, I want to say somewhere around eight department heads formed the committee.

Several years prior to my election, the county had requested a review, by a consultant, of all jobs in the county, make a job description on each job and assign a wage scale.

The county then received the formulas to help decide, through this committee, how any new jobs were to be evaluated and given a wage scale.

Like any large employer Wasco County had several positions that were similar in nature no matter what department the person worked in; but there were also many jobs that were so dissimilar in nature that they required the committee to review and make decisions on them.

In addition to this process the employees had joined unions and the negotiated wages were the ones that were in effect. For those departments that did not have union representation those wages of similar positions – example, clerks – would prevail.

There were many things to consider, type of job, stress from the job, type of stress, what authority the employee in that job had in making decisions, education and training required, similar positions in other departments within the county, etc. A numerical value would be assigned to each of them.

We would then go to a table that was pertinent to that position (a management position was not judged the same as a non-management position and because of the type of work we did law enforcement was separate from others.)

A Department Head could ask for a review of his department's wages, usually either because he had a new position that wasn't listed before, or he had assigned more duties to the position and believed it should be evaluated.

After reading the description and listening to the department head's explanations we would independently assign the values to the position and then discuss them. Very seldom were we off more than a point or two from each other. The method was scientific, but allowed for anomalies and it was easily applied.

Once the position was evaluated the information would be given to the County Commissioners to approve or disapprove. Sometimes the committee would recommend that the position not be allowed for that department – but that was rare. And not always was the department manager happy with the wage scale given to the position.

However, I have to say that the formula worked very well, I was amazed at how accurate we could be in our recommendations.

Most of the job descriptions for the Sheriff's Office were accurate except for the position of Corrections' Manager.

I could not believe what I read. The sole, the only, job duty listed, was that he knows where all the furnace equipment in the court house was and how to operate it.

There was nothing about supervision, nothing about running a jail; just he knows how the furnaces work.