Does county government give special preferences to Board of Supervisors‘ aides who want a permanent job in the county bureaucracy?
That’s what the county’s main employee union says is revealed in a series of emails and internal memos it obtained under the state’s labor law.
In the past two years, six people who worked on the staffs of board members have transferred into jobs in county bureaucracies such as the Health Care Agency, OC Community Resources and OC Waste and Recycling, according to documents released last week by county officials at the request of the Orange County Employees Association.
In one instance, the Health Care Agency conducted a competitive recruitment for a vacant position even though emails between agency officials suggest they had already chosen Whitney Ayers, a member of Supervisor Bill Campbell‘s staff, for the job. Ayers was later hired by the agency.
Steve Danley, the county’s human resources director, said there is no county policy on how transfers of supervisors’ staffers – which he said have been going on for 30 or 40 years – should be handled. A review of the emails released to the employees association shows such a policy is needed, he said.
The emails “do not make a good impression,” said John Moorlach, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, in an email to constituents.
