The Thurston County Board of Commissioners is considering a proposal to adjust positions in the commissioners’ office communications and public health and social services departments.
Maria Aponte, county human resources director, presented two resolutions in front of the board during their Tuesday agenda-setting session to vote on in next week’s board meeting. One resolution is to adopt a new chief communications manager classification, eliminate a public information specialist and reclassify another public information specialist to the chief communications manager position.
Aponte said this would reduce a four-man team to three, and the elimination of the position would save the county $95,000 per year. The reclassification would bring an additional $58,560 per year in savings to the general fund.
The second resolution on the table is to adopt a new classification for a laboratory technician in the public health and social services department and reclassify the environmental health technician position. A laboratory technician would test water samples, assess public health risk and ensure compliance with environmental regulations, Aponte said. The reclassification of the environmental health technician position comes at the same pay rate, she added.
County Manager Leonard Hernandez noted that the chief communications manager would be someone equipped with skills in content creation, such as videos and social media posts.
“Lots of things are no longer just press releases. It’s video and social media posts,” he said. “As a county, we should be doing a whole lot more of content creation, which we look forward to this position working with our departments who have a lot of ideas and funneling that out.”
Hernandez said that the chief communications manager will increase the county’s ability to amplify the work that the county and its departments are doing and reach as many audiences as possible. He added that the county doesn’t want to hire people with the same skill set but is looking for someone with social media marketing skills, as well as experience in audio and visual content.
“Obviously, the offices with their public information officers will continue to operate with the departments,” he said. “But what we’d like to do with the addition of this position is work on that team and really take it to the next level and doing a lot more coordination of the stories that we’re developing from within the departments with the commissioners’ office and communicating that out.”
The commissioners will vote on the resolutions at its next meeting on Tuesday, March 18, at 2 p.m. at The Atrium in Olympia.
