County weighs three Conservation Department staffing options

The Board of County Commissioners will hear a workshop update Monday on how to structure the new Conservation Department, with staff laying out three paths, hire a director and leave staff where they are, hire a director and move staff in right away, or create the department now and study a future realignment later Natural Resources Department Structure and Director and Manager Role Research Update Workshop Packet.

Staff’s recommendation is to hold the deeper realignment until the director is on board and the county has more analysis in hand, with January 2027 set as the point when the board can revisit that bigger move. The packet says the director post is already in the FY27 budget, and it frames the decision as a phased test of how much conservation work the county wants to pull out of Planning before it redraws the rest of the org chart.