Multnomah County has seven major departments, and many departments contain divisions. Departments and divisions are led by directors, with the departmental director overseeing all division directors. Departments, with their related divisions, include: 

  • The Homeless Services Department (name recently changed from the Joint Office of Homeless Services, not to be confused with the Homelessness Response System that resides in the Chair’s office)
    • Divisions: None
  • Health
    • Divisions:
      • Behavioral Health
      • Corrections Health
      • Public Health
      • Clinical Services
      • Emergency Medical Services
      • County Health Officer
  • County Human Services
    • Divisions:
      • Youth and Family Services
      • Aging and Disability Services
      • Veterans Services
      • Domestic Violence Services
  • County Assets
    • Divisions:
      • Facilities
      • Information Technology
      • Vehicle Fleets
  • Community Justice
    • Divisions:
      • Parole and Probation
      • Youth Services
      • Violence Prevention
  • County Services (not to be confused with County Human Services)
    • Divisions:
      • Animal Services
      • Elections
      • Land Use and Transportation in unincorporated parts of the county
  • “Nondepartmental” 
    • Includes:
      • Chair and commissioners’ offices
        • Chair’s Office includes the Homeless response System and Deflection Center
      • COO’s office
      • Communications
      • County Attorney
      • Sustainability
      • Disaster Response
      • County Management

The directors of each of the departments are responsible for proposing their own policies and departmental budgets to the Chair. The Chair makes final decisions about which policies and programs to include in her proposed budget. The budget process will be described in more detail in a future post.

Division directors often play as crucial a role in County work as department directors – consider, for example, Behavioral Health (aka Mental Health and Addictions); Youth and Family Services; Animal Services; and Emergency Medical Services. Technically, department directors select their own division directors, but the department directors themselves serve at the will of the Chair, and their decisions are made only with the approval of the Chair. 

When new department directors are needed, the Chair, as Chief Personnel Officer, sets the hiring standards, directs recruitment, sets the rules of engagement, and determines what information gets shared with the board. 

As a result, Board members usually have little background about candidates. The applicants have usually been narrowed down to two or three by the time they are shared with commissioners, and commissioners have limited time to meet with the applicants. 

Commissioners often have only superficial knowledge of the subject matter of the department the candidate is applying for, and they are fed selective information curated by the Chair. 

Although appointment of directors technically requires approval by a majority of the board – supposedly a “check” on the power of the Chair – the nature of the process itself, coupled with intense pressure to go along with the Chair’s decisions or be isolated, obstructed, and projects unfunded, inevitably leads to validation of the Chair’s choice. 

What’s worse, over the past couple of years the Chair has been appointing political allies whose only qualification for the job of leading major departments seems to be unconditional loyalty. And she has claimed exclusive power to appoint crucial positions without even requiring the low bar of superficial board approval. 

Takeaway: Do not assume that leaders of County departments have gone through a serious vetting process or have subject matter expertise or knowledge of County operations or systems for the jobs they have been hired to do. Many do not. The profound impact of this lack of subject matter expertise and systems knowledge on county functioning in areas of its core responsibilities will be examined in a future post.