Can the differentiation between the board’s role and the director’s role be described by the difference between responsibility for policy and responsibility for administration?

Yes, but not completely. A common adage used to describe the difference between the role of a governing board and the role of the agency’s director and staff is that the board is responsible for “policy” while the director and staff are responsible for “administering” the board’s policy. This, however, is not completely true. The role of governing boards is seldom confined to policy-making, and this is particularly true of social services boards, which are legally required to perform certain administrative or executive functions. And the “administration” of any policy, program, or service by an agency director and staff inherently includes any number of decisions and choices that can be characterized as “policy.” Nonetheless, it may be somewhat useful to think about the difference between the board’s role and the director’s role and the relationship between the board and director in terms of the board’s determining (at least in part) what the agency will do and the director’s being responsible (at least in part) for how the agency will do what the board (and federal and state law) require the agency to do.