Lawson has talent for quiet leadership

It’s been a year since Sussex County Council hired County Administrator Todd Lawson and eight months since Lawson officially took over from Dave Baker, who stepped down after 33 years of service.

At 36 when he was hired, Lawson was only 3 years old when Baker took his first post for Sussex County. As Lawson would remark after taking the job,  “Everyone loves Dave Baker, and I have some large shoes to fill.”

Lawson now manages 500 employees and a $132 million budget. When asked how he does it, he always says he’s working on the strong foundation Baker established.

Still, Lawson is quietly bringing change to the way county government operates. Not content with the explanation “We’ve always done it that way,” Lawson has challenged county staff to increase their professionalism and improve efficiency.

It started, soon after he took office, by adopting a dress code for county employees. From there he moved on to overhauling the county website to make it more user-friendly, initiated a reevaluation and reduction of online credit-card fees, and encouraged a streamlined budgeting process that made the budget document easier to understand.

An attorney who previously worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., Lawson has also played a key role in securing infrastructure grants to extend the county airport runway and pressed for funding to dredge the Nanticoke River, an urgent project to keep the river navigable.

Lawson has also quietly improved government transparency, ensuring documents detailing matters before council are publicly available online.

While accomplishing all this, Lawson introduced his first county budget; for the 23rd consecutive year, the county again held the line on property taxes.

On taking the job, Lawson said he wanted to return to his Sussex County roots to raise his family.  He brought with him energy, persistence and an interest in improving public service and public access to information that is already bearing fruit.

Lawson indeed had large shoes to fill, but still in his first year, he is demonstrating he is up to the task.