North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger cut his staff's public office hours back in April, citing a paperwork backlog.
Now, it's July. Jaeger this week got permission to hire three new staffers. One could come on board in a few days, but the others likely won't start working until August.
What's wrong with this picture?
What's wrong is that a staffing issue led to a vital state office staying open to the public only 30 hours a week -- and even though it's now three months later, the issue still hasn't been fully resolved.
That's too long. State government never will be as nimble as private business. But it shouldn't have taken three-plus months for Jaeger to get the staff he needed.
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Given the facts that the Bakken oil boom keeps making extra work for state agencies and that the boom is likely to continue, does North Dakota need a quicker way to respond to staff shortages?
An agency or official should find out. State government should conduct a "post mortem" of sorts on the secretary of state's staffing woes.
Forget naming a commission or appointing an executive director; that's not what's needed here. Instead, what's needed is just a debriefing of officials who've been involved, including Jaeger and probably the leaders of the legislative committees that approved his requests.
How well did the system work? Are there better alternatives? In between legislative sessions, how should an agency head proceed the next time a growing workload overwhelms his or her staff?
That kind of thing.
"The secretary of state shortened his public office hours in early April, saying the move was needed to allow employees undisturbed time to process a backlog of business registration and occupational license applications," The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
"It is now open from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on weekdays.
"One example of the mushrooming business document workload brought on by North Dakota's oil-driven economic prosperity is the rise in the number of licensed contractors, Jaeger said. As of Wednesday (June 20), his office had licensed 10,646 contractors, an increase of 41 percent from a year ago, he said."
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Backlogs need to be plowed through so that applications can be processed in a timely manner. In other words, Jaeger had reason to cut his office's public hours.
The issue now simply is how long the reduced hours have stayed in place. If there's a better way to make sure state offices are staffed up and can handle surges, North Dakota should find it -- because more surges likely are on their way.
-- Tom Dennis for the Herald
