Salt Lake County may cut positions

With auditor Craig Sorensen out of office as a result of the vehicle-use scandal, Salt Lake County officials are resurrecting discussions about reducing the number of elected officials in Salt Lake County.

The county has 18 elected offices: nine members of the County Council, one mayor and eight others with specific duties — assessor, auditor, clerk, district attorney, recorder, sheriff, surveyor and treasurer.

The idea of combining some of the lesser offices or making them appointed positions has cropped up from time to time — most notably during discussions before the change of county government in 2000 — but so far no change has come of it.

With Sorensen out, that may change.

"Craig Sorensen had a very strong personality," assessor Lee Gardner said Tuesday. "Now that he's gone, (council members) are thinking they might do something they were too scared to do before."

The topic came up in Tuesday's council meeting, though it would take a long time and several more discussions before the issue went before voters, who would have to approve any change.

Council vice chairman Russell Skousen said he wanted to bring up the topic before the county Republican Central Committee meets Saturday to decide what three names they will recommend to the council for Sorensen's replacement.

The council will choose a replacement from those three names.

Skousen said it was only fair that whoever the committee chooses be on notice that the number and structure of the elected offices may change at the end of the interim auditor's two-year term, in case that person is thinking of running for the office in 2006.

Current chief deputy auditor David Beck is the leading candidate right now.

Arguments vary as to whether consolidating elected offices, or making them appointed positions, would be good or bad for the county. Several smaller counties combine positions (such as clerk and auditor, or surveyor and recorder), but their counterparts in Salt Lake County said given the county's size, that's a bad idea.

"I think the duties of the clerk in Salt Lake County are much too large" for it to be merged with another position, Clerk Sherrie Swensen said.

The existing system "is an intentional separation of powers and a safeguard against widespread corruption and cronyism," Recorder Gary Ott said.

Gardner said the council, rather than looking at the other elected officials, might start by looking at itself. The council has six members elected by district, with three others elected at large, each of them with an administrative assistant.

"I don't think we really need more than one at-large member," Gardner said.

Several elected officials, including some members of the council, described the renewed discussions as a "knee-jerk reaction" to the vehicle-use scandal.

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