The Osceola County Commission recently had a consultant tell them the county was in “pretty good shape” in terms of delineating the duties and responsibilities for the county attorney, commission auditor and county manager, (three employees required by the charter) and that’s good to know as our newest charter review committee is set to meet March 8 for the first time.

However, at the Feb. 14 commission meeting, consultant Marilyn Crotty, director of the Florida Institute of Government at the University of Central Florida, pointed out some problem areas involving these three top administrators.

We agree that the manager and attorney should not have the authority to direct the auditor. That is the job of the commission and the auditor has to remain independent for obvious reasons.

We also agree that a “non-interference” clause should be put in place for commissioners, prohibiting them from directing any county employee other than the three administrators. Having such a clause also would prevent commissioners from trying to micro-manage any county operations or departments – we are not saying that is happening now – and also would help keep commissioners out of trouble in terms of them requesting staff to take care of certain problems or issues in which they might have a personal interest.

Keeping the auditor and attorney out of “strategic planning” for the county, we think, is a good idea as well. Crotty also did not say that there should be an expanded role for the auditor, as suggested by some commissioners after the firing of Kathy Wall in December for what we have said were not  very good reasons.

As far as evaluations go, Crotty said they should be done annually for the top administrators and that there should not be any surprises in these evaluations. While we couldn’t agree more, we also wonder why it took a consultant to tell us something so obvious.

Let’s hope that Crotty’s recommendations, along with those from other staff, will be enough for the commission to move ahead with filling the commission auditor and county attorney positions permanently.

And finally, we’d like to see all three top administrators be required to live in Osceola County, not just the county manager.

The commission at a workshop at 11 a.m. Monday will discuss the evaluation and job duties issues.