After countless hours of weekly meetings and research done over the past year, the Tooele County Government Study Committee met Thursday and approved its final report.
The committee next turned in its report to the County Clerk’s office on Friday afternoon.
The report reads, in part, “It is the recommendation that the state of Utah minimum default three-member county commission form of county government be abandoned and replaced with a council-manager form of government as afforded within Utah Code … As such it is proposed that Tooele County shall become governed by a part-time five-member county council elected by district and an appointed county manager, hereinafter referred to as council-manager form of county government.”
The report was adopted by a unanimous vote of the committee’s nine remaining members.
“My heart is in this,” said Richard Mitchell, study committee chairman. “I believe it is the right thing for Tooele County.”
The study committee’s proposed optional plan of government recommends that the five council members be part-time volunteers. The committee also suggested an annual stipend of between $20,000 and $25,000 for the council members.
“It is the anticipation of the committee, that by changing from full-time type positions such as that found within the current three-member commission form of government, there will become a shift in the candidate pool from ‘career-seeking’ individuals to ‘community service minded altruistic-charitable citizens’ not dependent upon a full-time county income,” reads the report.
The county manager position would be a full-time professional position with a recommended salary range of $90,000 to $120,000, according to the report.
“While it is the intent of the committee to target the county council membership into non-career, love of community, citizen service position, that is not the recommended committee intent for the county manager position. … The committee recommends shaping the employment position requirements, compensation package and position expectations to that of a professional manager.”
In addition to a salary and the same benefits as other county employees, the committee recommended that the manager’s compensation package include a 10-percent pass/fail performance bonus based on budget compliance for all departments of which the manager has direct oversight.
The committee also recommended that the terms of employment for the manager include the possibility of immediate termination by the council for cause. The list of causes for termination include failure to achieve performance metrics, various ethical violations and criminal acts.
The manager could also be terminated by the council without cause, but with a six-month salary and benefit severance package, according to the committee’s recommendations.
The county clerk’s office has 10 days from receiving the report to send a copy of it to the county attorney for review, according to Utah state code.
The county attorney then has up to 45 days to return a report on the proposed optional plan to the county clerk.
The attorney’s report is to include any provisions, if there are any, of the proposed optional form of county government that, if implemented, would constitute a statutory or constitutional violation, according to state code.
Unless the violations are so integral to the proposed optional plan that, in the opinion of the county attorney, having previously changed them to avoid the violation would have affected the decision of a study committee member who favored the plan, the county attorney is to include with the report how the proposed plan may be modified to avoid the violations, according to state code.
The study committee may then meet and revise the proposed plan.
Once the proposed optional plan meets all statutory and constitutional requirements, the county commission may place the plan on a ballot for approval or disapproval by voters.
However, if the county commission declines to put the proposed change on the ballot, state code provides an alternate route to give voters a say. That alternate route includes the collection of signatures from 2,200 people registered to vote in Tooele County, according to the committee’s report.
If the proposed optional plan is approved by voters at the November 2018 general election, the study committee’s transition plan calls for the new five-member council to be in place on Jan. 1, 2021. The county manager would be hired and at work by April 15, 2021.
Two positions on the county’s first five-member county council would be filled by transitioning two county commissioners elected in November 2018 to part-time county council members for the remaining two years of their terms. Three county council members would be elected in a November 2020 election for four-year terms, according to the committee’s proposed transition plan.
The study committee’s process and recommendation was not a partisan process, according to Erik Gumbrecht, vice chairman of the study committee, a former Tooele County Republican Party chairman, and one of the sponsors of the petition to put the formation of the study committee on the ballot.
“It really hasn’t mattered what party or affiliation people have,” he said. “I have made friends during this process with people of different party affiliations.”