3.0. SR 09-07-1999 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The current organizational structure of the Water and Waste Water departments allow for efficient .operation. We experience few customer complaints and the water rates are competitive. I can not speak for the Waste Water department rates. Currently the Utilities bills and collects Waste Water funds for the City and transfers these funds monthly to the City. The Utilities also bills and collects monthly garbage fees and transfers these funds to the City. In regard to benefits to the customer, the customer being a developer or homebuilder, deals with the electric, water, waste water and planning/zoning departments. Regardless how the waste water and water departments are organized, the customer must still deal with the electric and planning/zoning departments. This requires the customer to go to both locations. The Pro's and Con's of combining the Water/ Waste Water Lead position are as follows: . Pro's 1) Reduce new construction inspection time. Currently waste water and water employees are sent to a new facility to do waste water and water inspections. Water employees go to a site on two more occasions for meter delivery and remote installation. Possibly water employees could inspect waste water construction. There has been a cooperating effort on this in the past. 2) 80th Waste Water and Water departments have four employees available to respond to after hours complaints. A larger pool of employees would be beneficial. Not presently a problem. 3) Some Waste water employees carry ~ow level water licenses, some water employees carry low level Waste Water licenses. With more training and testing, both department employees could elevate the complimenting license. Actual benefit is unknown because the lack of day to day operation duties would not be shared. Con's 1) A supervisor of Waste Water and Water would be working for two governing bodies (City Council and Utility Commission) and two different supervisors (City Manager and Utility General Manager). This is not a workable situation. A better solution is to put Water and Waste Water under one governing body, City Councilor Utilities. 2) Utilizing a lead person to supervise departments without having financial accountability or input is not a wise management choice and may be counter productive. This situation can be solved by placing the combined position under the jurisdiction of the Utilities where financial responsibility is not a constraint. The current Superintendent of Water has some financial responsibility. 3) Due to different wage and benefit structures between the City and Utilities- combining the supervisory positions only while reporting to two governing bodies will cause labor issues to arise. This can be solved by combining departments and placing under the jurisdiction of either the City or Utilities. . 4) The Water Superintendent position is comprised of two major duties of supervising the water department, (55% of time) supervising electric metering and environmental compliance (45% of time). The City apparently feels supervising the waste water area is approximately a 50% position if they also have time to supervise the water department. Currently the Utilities has combined the position of supervising the water and electric metering to create a full time position. If the Waste Water and Water supervisory positions are combined, the Utility must still hire an electric meter and environmental compliance person. This would be an extra half person that is not needed at this time.