The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners were saddened when the results of an organizational culture survey came back to them Jan. 3, but most commissioners seemed to accept the validity of the report at the time.
However, some board members changed their tune at their January regular session, requesting Michigan Leadership Institute regional president John Scholten to provide additional data and address some perceived shortcomings in his report.
Scholten provided some more information to board chairman Ty Wessell on Jan. 30 via email, which Wessell shared with the Enterprise. The attached documents include the positives, challenges, and top issues about working in Leelanau County government according to the survey respondents. The lists are identical to those presented at the Jan. 3 meeting except for a number in parentheses after each item representing the number of employees whose responses touched on the theme or topic.
Although Scholten told the county board prior to signing his contract that his approach would be “more qualitative than quantitative,” some commissioners criticized his report for simply listing the issues that emerged in the face-toface and online surveys, but not indicating which topics came up the most.
Three of the officials who received the brunt of the survey’s criticisms – Commissioner Melinda Lautner, Clerk Michelle Crocker, and Deputy Clerk Jennifer Zywicki – suggested in interviews with the newspaper that negative responses about them were overrepresented by Scholten. When asked why Scholten would mislead the board while sharing his findings, they declined to comment.
Commissioner Lautner alleged in a Jan. 16 board meeting that other elected officials and department heads were subject to similar amounts of criticism, yet these responses were not represented in the survey.
“We have employees in this court- house whose voice just was silenced,” Lautner said at the meeting. “There were no facts – at all – presented with this report.”
According to the “raw response numbers” provided by Scholten, however, 54 respondents — about 63% — cited the clerk’s office as a challenge of working at the government center. Among the responses were claims that “Crocker and Zywicki ‘put their nose in everything,’” are “vindictive/dishonest” and “mean-spirited,” and deny “access to computers (and) keys to desks” that other employees need.
In fact, this was the most reported challenge. The second most common challenge, at 46 responses, was also related to the clerk’s office: the perception that employees are not being treated equally.
Crocker and Zywicki have been receiving fixed weekly payments of $250 – 10 hours per week at $25 an hour – through April 30, 2024, to help manage payroll and prepare for the March 2024 audit while the county searches for a new finance director. Financial duties like these used to fall to the clerk’s office prior to May 2021.
According to the survey results, some employees feel that the stipends for the clerk and deputy clerk are a sign of inequality, as other employees simply “get necessary things done without added pay.” Responders also frequently said that the clerk’s office gets “whatever asked for even after (finance and HR) duties cut,” the report says.
On the other hand, Scholten placed emphasis on the fact that some respondents had the “dangerous” perception that employees cannot “touch” elected officials. This is a serious accusation, as Scholten said, because it suggests that some people in the government center feel powerless to act against elected officials and department heads if they commit wrongdoing.
Despite Scholten describing this perception as “way too prevalent” on Jan. 3, only four employees said they “can’t touch elected officials,” according to the raw response numbers emailed to Board Chairman Wessell on Jan. 30.
Lautner was apparently mentioned less than Crocker and Zywicki, according to the email attachments, with 17 respondents identifying her as a challenge. These employees characterized her as “toxic, mean-spirited, anti-employee, (having) erratic behavior, conduit to the clerk/chief deputy (clerk), doesn’t know employees or departments,” according to the report.
When asked by the newspaper for comment on Wednesday, Lautner said she still felt the survey was incomplete, but added that she did not plan to pursue the matter any further.
“This is not raw data. This is no more than we had (on Jan. 3) ... it’s not what we asked for at all,” Lautner said. “I don’t think we go further with him (Scholten) without doing more damage. To continue on with what he has done will just do more damage.”
The other most common challenges reported in the survey were: the board of commissioners losing perspective on their place in the chain of command (29 responses); the lack of trust in the government center (26); losing too many employees “due largely to (a) group of three” unnamed officials (25); pay not covering the cost of living in Michigan’s wealthiest county (24); employees not feeling valued (24); and the perceived unfinished separation of county finance duties from the clerk’s office (24).
Many of these challenges overlapped with the survey’s “top issues.” The most commonly reported top issues for the board of commissioners were: moving finance and HR duties from the clerk’s office (30 responses); the need to improve communications (24); gaining better understanding and trust in employees (21); the cost of living (16); and to stop “digging” at county employees during public meetings (9).
The survey also asked employees to identify the positives of working in Leelanau County. These positives and number of responses include: great coworkers within their department (48 responses); opportunities to serve the community (44); benefits, salary, pensions, and financial solvency (32); employees stepping up to help each other during family emergencies etc. (20); safety and security (8); County Administrator Deb Allen and the HR department (6). Six respondents said there were no positives.
