Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 5, 1994                   TAG: 9407270003
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SUPERPOLITICS

But unless they're prepared to give up their day jobs to lend a hand collecting garbage or jailing suspects, citizen-legislators ought to leave the nitty-gritty work to full-time employees, including the local government's professional managers.

It is curious, therefore, that Montgomery County's Board of Supervisors saw fit recently to enact a hiring freeze for county employees. Ordering no new hires "without the prior express consent" of the supervisors, they said their purpose is to make sure that every job in the county has an up-to-date job description, and that all county workers are working to the job descriptions.

Such a freeze, applicable to all departments except the school division, seems a strange way to update job descriptions. Why couldn't that be left to County Administrator Betty Thomas, a 22-year county employee and its top manager since 1981? Since the action wasn't a response to a money crunch - supervisors say that's not the problem - it smacks of micromanagement.

Also unfortunate was the way the supervisors decided to set the freeze. They did so without public notice that it was being considered: It was not on their agenda. They also acted with almost no public discussion, after a four-hour closed meeting, at 11:30 p.m., when no members of the public were present. This ought to bother county residents.

If the supervisors are losing confidence in Thomas, there are better ways to handle the situation. If they aren't losing confidence, they - as elected policy-makers - have stepped out of bounds. And whatever their reasons, they ought not to retreat from public view to discuss nuts-and-bolts issues that are the public's business.