QUESTION: Is it true that Alamance County has retained an interim human resources director who is shuttling back and forth between Graham and her home base in California on the county government’s nickel?
ANSWER: Alamance County’s administrators didn’t exactly promote from within the ranks after the county’s former personnel director gave up her position under a cloud of scrutiny in February. But it may be a bit of a stretch to say that they’ve outsourced the H.R. director’s duties to someone in California – even if there is, indeed, a West Coast connection to the arrangement they’ve made to oversee the personnel department.
The county was initially without a human resources director following the departure of Cheryl Ray, who resigned her post as H.R. chief on February 14 when it emerged that she had mistakenly issued hundreds of thousands of dollars in unauthorized holiday payments to county shift workers.
A month after Ray’s resignation, the county extended a contract to the Baker Tilly Advisory Group, which was previously retained to oversee a multi-year pay study on the county’s behalf. The county has provided The Alamance News with a copy of this contract as well as the company’s engagement letter in response to a public records request from the newspaper.
According to these documents, the Virginia-based firm has marshaled a three-person team to oversee the county’s personnel department on an interim basis. The firm’s engagement letter notes that this team would be led by Carol Jacobs, a three-year veteran of Baker Tilly whose company bio cites extensive experience as a municipal administrator in California. Jacobs, who is designated as the team’s “project director,” provides a contact number in the engagement letter whose area code places it within Orange County, California.
Yet, Jacobs isn’t the only person who Baker Tilly has dragooned to fulfill this contract.
In fact, the company has assigned the role of “interim human resources director” to Margaret Rowe, whose public sector experience includes a stint as the human resources director for an unspecified city in North Carolina. Rowe’s company bio also mentions assignments with Georgia’s division of public health as well as two Florda counties, although it doesn’t state precisely where she’s based at the moment.
The third member of Baker Tilly’s interim team is Donna Peter, a “special advisor” who has been detailed to serve as a “human resources subject-matter specialist” for the county. Like Jacobs, Peter’s work experience is largely from communities in California, according to her company bio.
In any event, the company’s engagement letter doesn’t specify which of the three team members would be physically on the ground in Alamance County. It does, however, address the question of travel expenses when it spells out the fees that Baker Tilly will charge for the team’s services.
According to the engagement letter, the company will bill the county $175.00 an hour “to provide…an interim human services director” – “plus additional reasonable fees for travel and expenses.” The letter offers no particulars about these “reasonable fees.” It nevertheless predicts a total cost for the contract “not to exceed” $100,000, based on an anticipated work schedule of 20 to 25 hours a week and a six-month term for the interim arrangement.
