The Sherburne County Board voted unanimously on March 14 to its considerably flat Health and Human Services organizational chart.

 

Mary Jo Cobb, HHS director, approached the county board at a Feb. 21 work session to explain HHS’s current organizational structure and how it had developed over time. She directly manages 13 supervisors, many of whom have only been in their respective positions less than two years following a series of retirements. This is getting increasingly difficult to manage.

 

Cobb and other administrative staff, including assistant county administrator Dan Weber, went to work on a revised proposal that will be more cost-effective and provide more relief to Cobb and the department.  The plan called for creating two managers underneath Cobb, one to supervise the six social service units and the other to supervise the Public Health, Child Support and Economic Assistance units.  Cobb will continue to directly manage the Accounting area. According to Cobb, “this plan is allowing us to make a lot of changes quickly rather than asking for new positions. And we are eliminating the administrative services unit, which is our clerical support. We’re going to find a way to attach those staff to the different social service units so we don’t need that supervisory position.”

 

Cobb appointed two existing supervisors to these posts.  Jodi Heurung was appointed to be the social services manager.  Heurung has 10 years social work experience within Sherburne County HHS and additional experience in Stearns and Morrison counties. Amanda Larson was appointed to be the manager overseeing the public health and economic assistance programs, which includes child support and health care.  In this role Larson will also serve as the community health services administrator, responsible for developing, implementing, and directing public health programs and compliance with Minnesota Statute.  She has been with the agency for three years.

 

County Administrator Steve Taylor said a next step toward developing a long-range plan will be to look at workload and correlate it to staff, technology, efficiency and effectiveness from a metrics standpoint. “We’ll talk to the state and peer counties,” Taylor said. “We want to find that sweet spot. Something that is not too much and not too little.”

 

Heurung and Larson begin their new roles May 1.