San Bernardino County CEO gets new role fighting coronavirus
San Bernardino County’s CEO is stepping down to focus on special projects for the county, starting with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Gary McBride, who has been the county’s top non-elected official since November 2017, will take the title of strategic projects director starting Oct. 10.
One of the first special projects will be addressing the long-term fiscal impacts of the pandemic and funding issues with the CARES Act, the federal money to help with the pandemic’s effects that the county distributes, according to his contract, which the Board of Supervisors approved Tuesday, Sept. 29.
His pay will dip from $301,121 to $298,209.60 per year.
County Chief Operating Officer Leonard Hernandez, will take over as CEO. The board appointed Hernandez Tuesday and has not yet negotiated his contract.
McBride did not return a call to his office Tuesday. In a prepared statement, he said the position was a great opportunity to help the county and the Board of Supervisors.
“The crisis of COVID-19 presents us with opportunities to rethink how we address public health challenges and funding in this new era,” he said in the statement. “Those are the kind of challenges I love tackling and I am excited that the Board wants to focus on them.”
County supervisors — the CEO’s boss — said they were pleased with McBride’s work and appreciated his willingness to take a new role.
“The board needs Gary’s talents and abilities focused exclusively on these areas,” Chairman Curt Hagman said Tuesday.
Supervisor Janice Rutherford said board members decided early in the coronavirus crisis that the financial and economic impact of the pandemic would require a specialist — and that McBride, who was chief financial officer before his promotion, was the only man for the job.
“You need someone who’s had that CEO-level experience to understand how the organization operates and get them around the table and figure out ‘how do we integrate all that knowledge in one place?” Rutherford said.
The challenge of tracking CARES Act money will also allow McBride to tackle another project that’s long been needed — finding more strategic ways to help people who use multiple social services, she said.
“So let’s take, for example, a deputy comes across someone sleeping in one of our county flood-control channels,” she said. “Look at how that person has worked with social services — is social services working with them, did they just get out of jail, did they just get out of the hospital, do they need to go to the hospital?”
That will allow the county to save money, she said.
“Other counties that have been able to do this kind of analysis have been able to make better use of their resources,” she said.
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