County Manager Terry Doolittle of Pinal County, Arizona, is leading the County through Managing for Results, integrating Board strategic planning, department strategic business planning, performance budgeting and reporting – and a big commitment to cultural change.
Counties are statutory creations of states and hold in dynamic tension the elected Board and agencies that report to then through the County Manager side by side with a host of independent elected officials and the Criminal Justice System. The structure of counties provides real challenges any effort to move the entire county in one direction – together.
Doolittle has used two of the oldest strategies on the books – inclusion and participation – to build what Board Chair David Snider termed “a preponderance of similar philosophy” among all elected officials. The Board and all elected officials participated in the development of the County Strategic Plan. Board members share the belief that by building the Strategic Plan together with all elected officials they will be better able to move through the current budget crisis. According to Snider, “The Strategic Plan tells everyone what is important and where we want to go as a County and what we are doing to accomplish when we are faced with big challenges like we are right now.”
Further outstanding evidence that Doolittle's strategy is working is best told by senior leadership of the Criminal Justice System. Check out the extraordinary message of participation in Managing for Results by Todd Zweig, Chief Probation Officer, in one of Pinal County’s internal newsletters (click here to download it).
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