Retirements In County Zoning Offices Spur New Ideas For Facilitating Workforce Succession

There�s a pending retirement wave facing county zoning offices in Wisconsin, and the causes go beyond the Baby Boom demographics affecting the state�s total workforce. As the most experienced zoning administrators hang up their hats, they take with them decades of hard earned knowledge and skills. The local and varied nature of land use administration in the state, - with over 70 different county offices operating largely independently, - complicates the process of succession planning. Simply put, no one is responsible for ensuring that the next generation of zoning officials is large enough and adequately prepared to handle the workload.

Local and state specialists from UW Extension are stepping up to the plate, however, and partnering with the Wisconsin County Code Administrators and others to develop innovative strategies for enhancing knowledge transfer and easing the future workforce succession. This article provides background on the retirement issue and an update on the UWEX lead effort.

The Nature of County Zoning Offices
Zoning officials everywhere find themselves on the frontline of land use disputes. In Wisconsin counties, zoning administrators are often pulled in many directions - by landowners, their neighbors, town officials, the county zoning committee, and their own sense of what�s permissible under the law. With time and experience, a zoning official develops a sense of the local balance between politics and policy, land use rights and community responsibilities.

Unfortunately, there is no way to capture this hard-earned knowledge and easily pass it on to the next staff person in line. In any large organization, a human resource department might be developing workforce succession plans to analyze the potential for turnover and provide sufficient training for those moving up the career ladder. In this way, the turbulence brought on by retirements and other transitions is reduced.

Such a process is uncommon in Wisconsin county zoning offices. Many of them are one or two person shops- often with each worker wearing multiple hats: zoning code administrator, sanitarian, planner, grading inspector, etc. Tight county budgets typically mean that succession planning is not a high priority in many county zoning offices.

Why Now?
To date, the county zoning workforce has not faced any major turbulence due to turnover or retirements. Instead, many counties have been able to draw from other counties to attract new personnel when needed. Two phenomena are conspiring to make the existing workforce strategy much more challenging in the near future: the aging of the Baby Boomer generation and the rapid increase in county zoning activities in the early 1970s that created an influx of new zoning staff.

The Baby Boom itself is largely responsible for bringing attention to the need for workforce succession planning and knowledge management in the United States. For example, the State Government in Wisconsin faces a situation wherein over one-quarter of its 40,000 strong workforce will be eligible for retirement by 2012 (Wisconsin Department of Employee Relations, 2002). A similar demographic can be found in county zoning offices.

Another challenge is the succession of Wisconsin�s "first generation" of zoning staff, initially hired in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The creation of new state environmental laws to protect water and public health during this era created a need for more regulators and inspectors. Wisconsin continued its longstanding partnership between state and local governments by offering counties the opportunity to create and implement shoreland development regulations in unincorporated areas. Faced with the undesirable alternative of a state-administered zoning program, all of the state�s counties came on board with their own zoning program in a period of a few years (Weber and Peroff 1977).

Over thirty years later, it should seem obvious that most of the "first generation" of county zoning officials is nearing retirement, if they haven�t left already. In the spring of 2005, CLUE began a project to confirm this situation and shed more light on the status of the county zoning workforce throughout the state. Chris Mrdutt, a land use planning student at UWSP and a code enforcement specialist with Portage County, assisted me in contacting nearly 160 employees in county zoning offices to gather information about their background in the field and their future plans.

Results of Workforce Census
Our results indicate that 25% of the workforce anticipates retiring or leaving the workforce for other reasons within 5 years. As one might expect, those leaving the workforce will take with them a wealth of experience in the field of zoning administration. The average length of service for those planning to retire within 5 years (n=39) is well over 20 years.

The effect of retirement and other workforce exits was also estimated by "aging" the zoning workforce and replacing those who will leave with new workers. Figures 1 and 2 on the next page show the current and future makeup of the workforce in terms of experience levels. Figure 2 reflects the assumption that each person leaving the workforce is replaced by another person. Using this cohort projection method, the portion of the workforce with less than 5 years experience is anticipated to double from 12% in 2005 to 24% in 2010. The combined cohorts with over 25 years experience will decline from 20% to 17%. (If the entire workforce were evenly divided among all seven categories examined, each cohort would be expected to contain 14% of the workforce).

As evidence that the zoning workforce has issues beyond just Baby Boom demographics, the age of workers in zoning offices and the state as a whole were compared. The results are shown in Table 1. Compared to the entire state�s workforce, the zoning administration workforce has almost twice the portion of workers in the age 55-65 category. This can partially be explained by the higher age expected of beginning zoning staff. The small portion of recently hired staff (those with less than five years experience) also contributes to both an older average age and the need for increased entry-level training and retention planning.

Preparing for the Future
The timing of zoning administrator turnover is posed to create additional challenges for Wisconsin�s counties. Revised shoreland zoning regulations embodied in NR 115 will create new and additional responsibilities for local zoning offices, such as tracking impervious surface levels in shoreland zones. Within the next five years, comprehensive plan consistency requirements will likely cause many, if not all counties to revisit their zoning ordinance and perhaps go through the long-avoided process of comprehensive revision.

The underlying forces affecting zoning officials in rural areas, such as development and construction in unincorporated territories, are forecast to increase as well. By one researcher�s estimate, over 100 billion square feet of new residential living space will be constructed in the US in the next 25 years (Nelson, 2004). Working in a zoning office, already a difficult task, is likely to become more challenging in the coming years.

To address this issue, UW Extension and the Wisconsin County Code Administrators (WCCA) are jointly developing a training and workforce development program geared to recent entrants in the zoning workforce. In addition, UW Stevens Point is seeking to revamp some of its natural resource management courses to better prepare undergraduates for entry-level positions in land policy administration.

A planning effort began in July at a meeting of Extension faculty, emeritus zoning officials with long histories in the WCCA, current zoning administrators, and representatives from the Wisconsin Builders Association. The Builders representatives were invited because they will end up dealing with the outcomes of turnover in the zoning offices. Their experience "on the other side of the counter" was a useful addition to the day�s discussion, which focused on the skills and knowledge necessary for success in zoning offices. The Extension facilitators grouped the morning�s brainstorm into four sections:

• Base knowledge, including knowledge of actual code contents, the development process (key steps and players), the basis of public policies, and the public benefits of rules and regulations.

• Technical skills, including public speaking skills, writing skills, interpretation and writing of local codes, and map reading.

• Political skills, meaning knowing who the local and statewide players are and their roles, but also being savvy and diplomatic on the job.

• Personal skills, including effective public communications and education strategies as well as the ability to work with people one-on-one and in groups.

The group met again in late August to formulate and refine strategies for ensuring that these skills are transferred to new employees. To meet the need for additional technical skills, faculty at UWSP will be creating two new courses for resource management students that highlight plan implementation, including zoning code enforcement. Three other programs were also discussed, including a leadership-style program for new code enforcement staff, a resource directory, and a mentorship program for new zoning administrators.

To address the need for political and personal skills, UW Extension, WCCA and others are proposing to develop a "leadership-style" program available to workers who are new in the field. Using successful county and state rural leadership programs as models, such a program would provide a valuable opportunity for skill development and networking among recent entrants into the zoning workforce. The program could entail several meetings throughout a one-year period, each focusing on a different aspect of the political and personal skills needed to succeed in a zoning office. Those who successfully complete the course would receive a certificate demonstrating their involvement in continuing education.

The proposed resource directory would be made available to zoning staff and others. It would be an exhaustive directory of educators and professionals involved in land regulation and development who are available to provide technical and other guidance. It would be indexed according to subject areas of expertise. Zoning staff with specific questions such as the pros and cons of shared private well systems could contact someone directly by phone or email to get answers and ideas. The resource directory would be collaboratively produced and maintained through UW Extension.

The planning group also discussed a mentorship program for new administrators at the August meeting. Through such a program, recently hired or promoted office heads would be matched with their more experienced peers in similar offices. The mentor and prot�g� would meet occasionally throughout the new administrator�s first year to discuss common issues such as staffing, budgeting, reporting, and work planning.

These new programs are still in formative stages and require more detailed planning and budgeting. The ideas developed so far will be presented to current zoning administrators and potential participants at the fall biannual conference of the WCCA, October 20th and 21st in Waupaca. Depending on the response of the WCCA executive board and members, the Extension team and their partners will begin to solidify programs by establishing dates, deadlines, and funding strategies. Look for updates in future issues of the Land Use Tracker.

References
Nelson, Arthur C., 2004, Toward a New Metropolis: The Opportunity to Rebuild America. The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program discussion paper.  www.brook.edu/metro/pubs/20041213_RebuildAmerica.pdf

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, 2004, State of Wisconsin Workforce Profile.  www.dwd.state.wi.us/oea/cp_pdf/wicpw.pdf   n