The county's whistleblower ordinance is on hold temporarily while officials decide whether to amend it based on a critical civil grand jury report recently released.
The ordinance was supposed to be formally adopted by the Board of Supervisors yesterday morning but board President Mark Church appointed a subcommittee to review it first. The committee, comprised of Church and Supervisor Jerry Hill, will come back to the board at the first meeting in June with the revised ordinance.
The halt was not a specific reaction to the civil grand jury's report, Hill said, but its recommendations will be weighed seriously.
"We will be taking it under consideration and certainly want to do what we can to accommodate its wishes although it may not be in the detail they want," Hill said.
The jury chided the ordinance - a formal way for employees to lodge grievances without fear of retribution - as being "hastily assembled" and not specific enough about policies, protections and ways to ensure that it is not abused.
Ideally, a whistleblower ordinance lets employees know how to file a complaint or concern over the way the county does business without the worry that they could be fired or otherwise targeted for retribution. Grievances can include fiscal mismanagement, inefficiency, waste or any sort of wrongdoing.
The jury's recommendations include the establishment of better investigation policies, a single point of contact for complaints, and covering every person who does business with or for the county.
If the board adopts the revised whistleblower ordinance at its next meeting, it will still require approval 30 days after that. It then becomes effective after one more month.
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