During the Board of Supervisors' work session on March 28, 2017, James Menlove, Gila County Finance Director, discussed the idea of converting Gila County Hearing Officers from part-time employee status to independent contractors. After the discussion, the Board of Supervisors directed staff to move forward and create a plan to convert the hearing officers to independent contractors. Further, the Board of Supervisors requested staff present the finalized plan at a future work session.

A project workgroup for this hearing officer project and staff identified several steps that were needed in order to be successful in completing the task given to us by the Board of Supervisors and fully convert the hearing officers to independent contractors: 1) Gila County Hearing Officer Ordinance 05-01 would require amending, 2) Gila County Finance Department would need to create a request for qualifications (RFQ) to send out to bid for independent contractors, and 3) each of the five programs that will utilize a hearing officer would need to update or create internal hearing procedures for Board of Supervisors' review and approval.

Moving forward with this project would allow the Gila County Board of Supervisors to appoint hearing officers to hear and determine violations to the Gila County Flood Control District, Onsite Wastewater program, Building and Zoning issues, Public Health Nuisances, and Animal Control violations.