Updated: Two More Key Positions Are Vacant At Shasta County’s Health and Human Services Agency 

One of the offices of the Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency in downtown Redding. Photo by Annelise Pierce.

9.30.23 2:15 p.m.: We have updated the article to include comments provided by County spokesperson David Maung after we published.

9.29.23 10:59 a.m: We have corrected the article to clarify that HHSA Director Ewert announced his retirement after Tim Garman was elected to replace the recalled supervisor Leonard Moty in 2022.

The top two positions for the Administrative Branch of Shasta County’s Health and Human Services Agency have opened up, HHSA community education specialist Amy Koslosky confirmed for Shasta Scout last week.

Job listings for the positions were posted eleven days ago, but Shasta County has not yet announced the official departures of HHSA Administrative Branch Director Megan Dorney and her Deputy Branch Director Michael Conti.

Last week, Koslosky said that internally, HHSA staff are aware that the positions are vacant.

She refused to answer additional questions such as whether the vacancies were caused by terminations, resignations, or retirements or when the positions were vacated. Instead, Koslosky wrote by email, “The Agency has no comment since these are County Personnel matters or County business.”

Shasta County spokesperson David Maung did not initially provide comment but reached out after this article was published to indicate that Dorney’s position was vacated on September 7 and Conti’s on September 8.

While HHSA is run by Shasta County, it manages some of its own internal support, including public relations and other administrative services. HHSA’s Administrative Branch, which Dorney and Conti previously led, includes contracts, assets management, fiscal, financial audits and control, medical billing, HHSA planning and community relations, and education, according to a description on the county’s website.

Shortly after Tim Garman was elected to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, the county’s former Health and Human Services Director, Donnell Ewert, unexpectedly retired, citing local politics as one of the reasons for his departure. Garman was a critic of the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic during his 2022 campaign. Ewert, as well as former Health Officer Karen Ramstrom, received threats during the pandemic because of their decisions to follow state guidance in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus.

In late 2022, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, who at the time included Mary Rickert, Tim Garman, Les Baugh, Joe Chimenti, and Patrick Jones, unanimously appointed Laura Burch as the County’s new HHSA Director. Burch, who previously served both as Child Support Services Director and Housing Director, has worked for the county since 2017.

All but one of the branch directors who previously served under Ewert have left, along with a significant number of other staff at the agency. Data received from a public records request by Shasta Scout several months ago indicated that Shasta County’s Health and Human Services Agency has had the largest turnover of any agency in the County with almost 200 HHSA employees leaving the county just in the last year.

Under Burch’s leadership, HHSA’s branches have been consolidated from five into four. Burch has maintained the Public Health, Economic Mobility, and Administrative Branches of the agency while consolidating Adult Services, Child Services, and Mental Health Services under a single department with a new branch director, Miguel Rodriguez. Before taking that position, Rodriguez was appointed as Acting Director of Mental Health, and on the same day Burch became HHSA Director.

Since taking over leadership of HHSA, Burch has also overseen several controversial changes in county roles, including closing the Opportunity Center which used to support adults who receive disability assistance to find and maintain employment. Burch also relocated management of the seven-county NorCal Continuum of Care from its prior home under the Department of Community Action Programs, to place it under the management of HHSA earlier this year. Notably, Burch was the Director of the Housing and Community Action Programs Agency for the first two years of the county’s lead agency responsibilities for the CoC in 2017 and 2018.

After moving administration of the CoC under HHSA in May, Burch offloaded the administrative responsibility from her department in August, saying the cost to continue to run the CoC would not be sustainable. The decision has created deep uncertainty for the CoC’s Executive Board members as they seek to ensure that collaboration, planning, oversight, and implementation of programs to assist in housing unsheltered residents, continues.

Initially neither HHSA nor the county spokesperson responded to questions about who is serving as interim administrative branch director while a new hire is pending or the process by which the new branch director will be selected. After this article was initially published, County spokesperson Maung reached out to say that Terri Honer is currently working as an Extra Help HHSA Branch Director while the position is vacant. Maung also said the hiring process will occur in accordance with usual county policies and HHSA Agency Director Burch will make the final decision on who is hired.

According to job postings, listings for the positions will close on October 2 and October 4, both at 5 p.m.

Disclosure: Weidman is among the many employees who left the county’s Health and Human Services Agency over the last year. Weidman left her position as a staff analyst for the county on good terms after receiving an offer to work at Shasta Scout.

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