5.4C. SR 07-22-2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Personnd,4ddi~ions: Staff Reorgani~a#on July 15, 2002 Page 4 of 4 director, the city engineer, the dty attorney, (to a limited extent) activities at the library, and coordination with the utilities general manager are also assignments that fall under my responsibility. This organizational system has worked well for years but the city has grown in many respects and the citywide workload and the workload in each department has grown significantly over the years. Much like the police department organization changes over the years (currently at 34 employees), the overall city structure needs some changes as it grows. The operation of the city is getting much too complex to have so many departments report to one individual. It is very difficult to have sufficient time in a typical workweek to give appropriate attention and supervision to all of the departments shown on the chart and listed above. A grouping of departments that provide similar types of services under one administrator or director and then having that individual report to me is a common organizational structure for municipalities as they grow larger. As far back as the late 1980's the City Council has talked about "super department heads" that would report to me and manage groups of existing departments. There is no one "cookie cutter" approach for how a city should be organized. Each municipality needs to identify its best way of operating and managing services. This way of providing services tends to evolve as the municipality grows. The approach I am recommending to the Council is somewhat similar to the approach being taken in the City of Blaine. Attached is some information on the public services manager position in the City of Blaine. The only real difference from a public services position as proposed in Elk River is that the park and recreation would be a separate entity. The concept being presented to the City Council is to establish an engineering department and to hire Terry Maurer as the city public services director/engineer in 2003. As the public services director, Terry would supervise the following departments: · Streets/Parks · Wastewater Treatment · Engineering · Building/Zoning · Planning · Economic Development Engineering is the "swing department" that works both with the outside activities and the inside planning and building/zoning activities. The city engineer being the key player in coordinating activities between departments is not much different from what currently takes place. The future steps in the engineering department plan are to hire two engineering techs, a GIS employee, and provide clerical support in 2004. This would be followed by hiring an assistant engineer in 2005 or later; whereby, Terry would end his dual responsibilities as city engineer and public services director and would manage the above listed departments and services. Also in the future, this public services director position may be broken down into a public works director and community development director, but this would be a future step in the evolution in the city's organizational structure.