Grand Traverse County administrators are proposing a redesign of the Commission on Aging (COA) board - a move that will effectively dissolve the existing 10-member board and replace it with a four-member advisory board.

County Administrator Tom Menzel and Deputy Administrator Jennifer DeHaan will present the proposal to county commissioners Wednesday. In a memo to commissioners, Menzel and DeHaan wrote the existing board structure has created confusion about the role of board members in policy-making and day-to-day operations, and said that 60 to 80 percent of COA leadership staff time was spent supporting the board rather than running the department. "By redesigning the board structure, staff can refocus their efforts on providing services rather than managing a board," Menzel and DeHaan wrote.

Administrators recommend going to a four-member advisory board system, with one member each having expertise in the following areas: healthcare, compliance/legal, accounting/financial, and regional knowledge of COA services. As with the existing board, members would be appointed by county commissioners to three-year terms.

"The redesigned COA board will clearly act in an advisory role to the (yet-to-be-hired) new director and will not be involved in day-to-day operations," Menzel and DeHaan wrote. "As a matter of practice, a board should be either a policy-making board or clearly defined as an advisory board. In this case, the board of commissioners acts as the true policy-making board for all county departments and has further designated the county administrator for being responsible for day-to-day operations."

The redesigned board would be requested to submit biannual reports to the county administrator about the department. Menzel and DeHaan propose recruiting the new advisory board members in the first quarter of 2017.

Bob Cooney, legal counsel for Grand Traverse County, says his department didn't have an opportunity to review the proposal before it was sent to commissioners. Cooney says he can't yet speak to the legality of dissolving the existing COA board in the method proposed by Menzel and DeHaan. "I have some questions about that whole process," says Cooney, "but I'm not prepared to comment on it one way or another at this point." Staff will be prepared to address any legal questions that arise about the issue Wednesday, Cooney says.