Why I support separating the County Administrator and Human Resources positions — and why recruiting, retaining, and respecting good employees is one of the best ways to protect taxpayers.
I support separating the Trempealeau County Administrator and Human Resources positions. Now before anyone starts yelling about growing government, let me explain why.
One of the best ways to rein in government spending is to hire people with the right skills, give them the tools to succeed, and retain them.
It sounds simple. But doing it well requires focus, leadership, accountability, and something government isn’t always particularly good at: measuring results.
I believe Human Resources deserves that focus. Not because I want more bureaucracy. Because I want less waste.n. And employee turnover is one of those expenses that rarely gets the attention it deserves.
Turnover: The Silent Budget Killer
When an employee leaves county government, most people see a vacant position, I see a credit card that is going to take nine to twelve months to pay off.
Eventually, someone new is hired. The position is filled. The salary line in the budget looks about the same.
Problem solved, right? Not even close. What doesn’t show up neatly in the budget is the cost of recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, training, and bringing that new employee up to the level of the person who left.
Then there’s the institutional knowledge that just walked out the door. The relationships. The experience. The understanding of how things actually work.
And don’t forget the experienced employees who now have to spend part of their day training someone else while still trying to get their own work done.
All of that has a cost. We’re paying for productivity we aren’t yet receiving.
And if that new employee leaves after a year or two? Congratulations. We get to pay for the learning curve all over again.
When Does a New Employee Actually Pay for Themselves?
Let’s put some numbers to it. Suppose we hire an employee earning $60,000 annually.
For this example, we’ll assume a fully productive employee delivers $90,000 in annual economic value through work performed, public services delivered, or costs avoided.
We’ll also assume the new employee starts at 30% productivity, reaches 80% by month nine, and achieves full productivity in month twelve.
These are illustrative financial assumptions, not actual Trempealeau County employment data. Here’s what the first two years look like.
The Real Cost of Employee Turnover
| Time employed | Productivity | Cumulative net value |
|---|---|---|
| Month 3 | 43% | -$6,825 |
| Month 6 | 61% | -$9,450 |
| Month 9 | 80% | -$7,800 |
| Month 12 | 100% | -$1,800 |
| Month 13 | 100% | +$700 |
| Month 18 | 100% | +$13,200 |
| Month 24 | 100% | +$28,200 |
Under these assumptions, the employee doesn’t generate a cumulative positive return on wages until month thirteen.
That calculation doesn’t include benefits, recruiting expenses, or additional training costs, which could push the break-even point further out.
And here’s another important consideration.
During the first year, that employee delivers the equivalent of approximately $21,200 less salary-based productive capacity than someone who was fully proficient from the first day.
That isn’t an additional payroll bill. It’s the value of productive capacity we didn’t receive during the learning period.
It also doesn’t magically reappear once the employee reaches full productivity. An experienced employee who stays continues delivering that higher level of productivity while a replacement is still learning.
That’s why retention matters.
What Does the Research Say?
The exact learning curve varies by position, but established research supports the broader financial argument:
- SHRM — Society for Human Resource Management: Recommends a strategic onboarding process lasting at least 12 months, with first-year performance used to evaluate whether an employee has reached full productivity.
- Gallup: Reports that new employees typically take approximately 12 months or longer to reach their full performance potential.
- Oxford Economics: Found an average of 28 weeks to reach optimal productivity in its studied workforce, with an estimated £30,614 replacement cost per employee, including £25,181 in lost productivity (2014 UK figures).
Sources: SHRM | Gallup | Oxford Economics
The month-by-month financial example above is a model illustrating these costs, not a productivity schedule published by those organizations. The point isn’t that every county employee takes exactly twelve months to become proficient.
The point is that employee turnover has a real cost, even when that cost doesn’t appear as a new line item in the budget.
And taxpayers are paying it.
Why I Support Separating the County Administrator and HR
The County Administrator has an enormous responsibility.
Overseeing operations, coordinating departments, managing budgets, implementing County Board policy, and making sure county government functions effectively.
That’s a full-time focus. Human Resources has an equally important, but very different, mission.
Recruiting qualified employees. Retaining good employees. Supporting supervisors. Developing talent. Managing personnel matters. Building a workplace where people want to stay and do their best work.
HR shouldn’t simply be the department that processes paperwork when someone gets hired or quits. It should be a strategic part of controlling government spending.
I want dedicated HR leadership that is focused on finding the right people for the right jobs and keeping them. That doesn’t mean every employee should stay forever, or that performance standards should be lowered to improve retention statistics.
Quite the opposite. Hiring the wrong person and keeping them in a position where they cannot succeed is expensive, too.
We need to recruit for the skills a position actually requires, set clear expectations, measure performance, and give employees a genuine opportunity to succeed.
And when good employees leave, we should understand why. Was it compensation? Poor supervision? Unreasonable workloads? Lack of opportunity? Scheduling? Or something else entirely?
If we aren’t gathering and analyzing that information, we’re guessing.
And guessing isn’t a strategy.
I Want a Measurable Strategic Plan for Every Department
This is bigger than HR. I believe every county department should have a measurable strategic plan.
Not a hundred-page document filled with buzzwords. Not a mission statement that sounds wonderful but tells us absolutely nothing about performance.
An actual plan. One that clearly identifies what the department is responsible for, where it needs to improve, what resources it requires, and how success will be measured.
I want objectives for the next 12, 24, and 36 months. I want department heads to have the authority to lead and the responsibility to demonstrate results.
And I want the County Board to evaluate those results instead of simply looking at whether a department stayed within its budget. Because staying within budget doesn’t necessarily mean we’re operating efficiently.
If a department has high turnover, declining service levels, or consistently unfilled positions, shouldn’t we want to know why?
If another department is retaining employees, improving productivity, and delivering excellent services, shouldn’t we want to understand what they’re doing right?
For Human Resources specifically, I’d like to see measurable goals that include:
- Employee retention: Annual turnover and first-year retention rates, by department and position type.
- Recruitment: Time to fill vacant positions, qualified applicants per opening, and the success of new hires.
- Onboarding: How quickly employees reach expected performance levels and what can shorten that learning curve.
- Employee development: Training effectiveness, succession planning, and opportunities for advancement.
- Financial accountability: Estimated turnover costs, recruitment expenses, and savings from improved retention.
Of course, those metrics need context. A retirement isn’t the same as an avoidable resignation, and turnover in one profession may look very different from turnover in another.
But collecting the right information gives us something better than assumptions. It gives us facts. You cannot manage what you refuse to measure. And if we’re serious about controlling spending, we need to start measuring more than dollars appropriated. We need to measure results.