Inspired by term limits, county may reorganize

Ozaukee County Board members are eyeing a change in term limits for its committee chairmen, which could be accomplished, they say, by “self-organizing,” which would give them more flexibility than they currently have under state statutes.

Currently, chairmen of the county’s five standing committees —Finance, Health and Human Services, Natural Resources, Public Safety and Public Works —are limited to three two-year terms.

But some projects that those committees oversee take more than six years to complete and changing chairmen mid-stream would be problematic, some supervisors say.

“If you have a chairman with a good level of expertise, you wouldn’t want to change that,” County Board Chairman Lee Schlenvogt said in a telephone interview.

That prompted some supervisors to suggest that Ozaukee County become self-organized, as 44 of the state’s 72 counties have done, Schlenvogt said.

On Monday, Jon Hochkammer, outreach manager for the Wisconsin Counties Association, explained to members of the county Executive Committee, which is made up of the chairmen of the five standing committees, that the main benefits of being self-organized would be to give them more latitude in setting their terms of office, their salaries, filling vacancies on the board between elections and extending term limits for committee chairmen.

Currently, Ozaukee County is limited by state statute in what actions it can take on those issues.

“Counties are completely subject to state law,” Hochkammer said. “They have no constitutional home rule authority as do cities and villages.”

For instance, under state law all non-self-organized county supervisor seats must stand for election on the first Tuesday of April in even-numbered years and take office on the third Tuesday of that April.

If a county becomes self-organized, however, a county board can stagger its elections, with half the board up for re-election one year and the other half the next, avoiding the potential turnover of the entire board in one election, as has nearly happened in some counties when there was a major controversy, Hochkammer said.

The option for self-organization was created in the 1970s to give counties more flexibility. 

A self-organized county also “can be as creative as it wished” in setting compensation for county supervisors, Hochkammer said, although a board can not set compensation mid-term for itself.

Some counties pay supervisors a per diem for attending meetings or pay committee chairmen more than rank-and-file supervisors.

To fill a vacancy on the board, the chairman of a non-self-organized board appoints  someone to fill the position, subject to approval by the County Board.  A self-organized board can set its own rules for filling vacancies.

In one case, one self-organized county took that responsibility away from its chairman when he refused to fill vacancies, Hochkammer said.

To become self-organized requires approval of an ordinance by a majority of a county board and filing a certified copy of the adopted ordinance with the Wisconsin Secretary of State’s Office.

The Executive Committee consensus was that there seems to be no reason not to become self-organized, even though supervisors are unlikely to alter current policies.

Staggering terms, for instance, would mean slightly higher election costs, and also would mean turnover every year on county committees.

“I’m concerned about our committees being reshuffled every year,” said Supr. Marty Wolf, who sat in on the meeting.

“We don’t lose anything” by becoming self-organized, Supr. Paul Melotik said.

“There’s a flexibility benefit,” Supr. Linda Krieg said.

“It gives us options to do some things we may or may not want to do,” Wolf said.

Schlenvogt said it’s even unlikely supervisors would change current term limits for committee chairmen.

“I don’t expect it to come up,” he said. “If it does, we’ll deal with it.”

The Executive Committee voted that a presentation similar to Hochkammer’s be made to the County Board on Wednesday, Feb. 19, and that the issue come back to the committee in March for a possible vote to recommend the change.

A vote on the proposed ordinance could be held by the County Board in April.