Guidelines for Agency Dispute Resolution Coordinators

What is a Dispute Resolution Coordinator?

Governors, legislatures and agencies have begun to establish DR programs in state government through executive orders and legislation and to encourage greater use of collaborative decision making processes. The responsibility for leading and staffing implementation efforts at the agency level is often placed in the hands of Dispute Resolution (DR) Coordinators or similarly titled people. Approaches to establishing DR coordinators, and issues that arise such as capacity and resources, depend upon whether a statewide effort is underway to integrate dispute resolution in state government, versus whether a single agency decides to employ dispute resolution more widely.

The DR Coordinator designation is a loose one. Coordinators may range from high level political appointees to career civil servants. Also, a coordinator's role may vary depending upon the state or agency. The role may include collecting data, making and implementing plans and programs, providing training, coordination and/or technical assistance. It could also involve managing, tracking and evaluating program activities.

Whatever the duties, the trend toward establishing agency DR Coordinators reflects A) the growing importance of DR in a state's or agency's decision making, and B) the importance of assigning responsibility (having a point person) for DR implementation within an agency.

States that have undertaken statewide efforts involving multiple agencies have found a need to provide resources and coordination-including consultation, technical assistance, and training to their network of DR Coordinators

To date, three states have enacted executive orders to integrate DR in state government-Massachusetts, Oregon, and New Mexico. These executive orders call on agencies to appoint DR Coordinators and make assessments of their agencies' DR needs, and then to develop and implement plans. Massachusetts and Oregon have statewide offices of dispute resolution that serve as resource centers, providing a centralized source of expertise. They provide guidance, training and technical assistance for state agencies on DR policies and practices. New Mexico has an ADR Council made up of representatives from various agencies, but no established resource center. This lack of a central resource center has presented some challenges in implementing the state's executive order.

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