Washington County on Nov. 4 accepted an updated Administrative Manual for 2025 and endorsed a process to bring administrative policies onto a regular review cycle.

County Administrator Tanya Angie introduced the manual and explained the officeof the county counsel had flagged that prior practice — a one-page organization chart — did not meet the county code requirement for an administrative manual. Angie said staff is instituting a cadence to update policies and procedures, with an intent to review policy groups on a three-year cycle and to align financial-policy updates with the budget process.

Erin Calvert and other staff described specific policy adjustments included in the packet: updates to policy and procedure 101/101a, alignment changes reflecting the boardadopted access and opportunity resolution (various policies and procedures listed in the staff report), an ADA-related amendment to policy 305 and a new procedure 305a, and a newly created policy 609 for data governance to clarify data quality, security and access responsibilities.

Staff also described organization-chart changes reflected in the manual, including placement of the Office of Access and Opportunity under the County Administrative Office, moving the Office of Emergency Management under general government, moving Parks and Westside Commons under culture/education/recreation functional area, and reflecting FY26 budget decisions that eliminated separate economic development and sustainability lines under the County Administrative Office.

The board voted unanimously to accept the Administrative Manual for 2025 and directed staff to bring financial policies to a January roundtable and to adopt them as part of the June budget cycle going forward.