By Jessie Burchette

jburchette@salisburypost.com

Rowan County departmental directors will make their cases for program needs during the upcoming county commissioners retreat.

The Rowan County Board of Commissioners will hold its annual retreat Feb. 24-26 at the Tadlock South Rowan Library.

While some recent retreats have produced grandiose ideas such as getting a branch of UNC-Charlotte in Salisbury, most have focused on basics such as jail and courthouse expansion.

With commissioners possibly facing one of the toughest budget years in decades, some expressed reluctance to hear plans for new or expanded programs.

Commissioner Raymond Coltrain pushed for presentations from each department head dealing with program needs for the next one to five years.

Coltrain favored a split retreat, with commissioners meeting a day and half to review written briefs from the department heads and hear from them individually. After taking a couple of weeks to digest the information, he suggested, the board could meet to discuss and evaluate the proposals.

"Spread it out over several days to avoid saturation," Coltrain said.

Commissioner Chad Mitchell, a veteran of six retreats, advised against turning it into a budget session. He also suggested it could open the door to micro-managing.

Chairman Carl Ford agreed that he didn't want to get commissioners into micro-managing the departments.

Mitchell noted that managers currently meet with the county manager to lay out goals and needs. That information is included in the workbooks that go to commissioners, along with the manager's budget recommendations.

Mitchell recalled some prior retreats that turned into exhausting sessions as everybody wanted more money.

"I don't want that either," Coltrain said. "That's not my intent."

Mitchell said commissioners have since reserved the retreats for big-picture planning and big ideas.

After additional discussion, Mitchell agreed to the information session. "I'm not an enemy of information," he said.

Instead of a split retreat, the board will get the written reports from department heads in mid-February, two weeks ahead of the meeting with department heads.

Commissioners didn't agree with Coltrain's suggestion to use a local person as a facilitator at the retreat, possibly County Manager Gary Page.

"It's a very delicate situation," said Mitchell, adding that he wouldn't want to put the manager in that position.

Mitchell's comment drew a nod and a smile from Page.

The facilitator keeps the discussions going, sometimes shutting down commissioners if they dominate the session.

The board agreed with Mitchell's recommendation to hire Larry Parks, a Rowan native who is retired from the Centralina Council of Governments.

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