Discussion Regarding the Public Works Department's Interim Titles

The purpose of this case is to discuss removing the interim status from the titles of both the Public Works Director and the Assistant Public Works Director effective January 25, 2023.
 
On July 11, 2022, City Engineer Bruce Westby was promoted to City Engineer/Interim Public Works Director, and Parks and Assistant Public Works Superintendent Mark Riverblood was promoted to Parks and Assistant Public Works Director, following the retirement of former Public Works Superintendent Grant Riemer.  Council requested interim status be applied to both promotions for a period of approximately 6-months to allow staff time to evaluate whether the new management structure at Public Works would work effectively in the long-term, and to determine if additional resources were needed to effectively support the Engineering and Public Works Departments with Mr. Westby's dual role.
 
To ensure that the new management structure at Public Works would work effectively, staff met with former Public Works Superintendent Riemer on several occasions prior to his retirement to develop a plan to reallocate some of his duties to other staff since City Engineer Westby was not able to effectively absorb all the duties.  The plan as implemented, reallocated various duties among numerous Staff within the Public Works and Engineering departments.  Some of the reallocated duties were intended to be permanent in nature, while others were intended to be temporary pending removal of the interim status from the Public Works Director and Assistant Public Works Director titles, and pending City Engineer Westby’s ability to delegate more of the City Engineer’s duties to Assistant City Engineer Joe Feriancek over time.

Regarding whether additional administrative services are required to support the new Public Works management structure, the current Public Works Administrative Assistant spends 80-percent or more of her time assisting the Parks department with scheduling Park reservations, issuing bicycle, canoe and kayak rental cards, and other miscellaneous duties required to support the Parks department.  The current Public Works Administrative Assistant is therefore unable to assist the Streets and Utilities departments with many of their administrative needs including processing invoices generated by these departments, preparing and mailing quarterly delinquent utility payment letters, scheduling water meter installations, scheduling required meetings with regulatory agencies, and assisting these departments in responding to requests for service such as rusty water and snow plowing complaints.  Staff will continue to explore what additional administrative services are required to effectively support the Streets and Utilities departments, and will update the City Council at a future meeting. Additionally, since the interim status became effective, the City Council issued debt for the purpose of an aggressive pavement management plan.  This added funding, compounded with historical staffing needs to complete inspections of infrastructure projects (public and private), will require additional resources to complete required inspection services.  Staff will bring forward a recommendation on addressing this need at a future meeting as well. 
 
In summary, Staff feels the new management structure at Public Works has been successful and recommends removing the interim status from the titles of the City Engineer/Interim Public Works Director and the Parks and Interim Assistant Public Works Director.  Furthermore, resources from a staffing perspective have been identified, and should Council concur with the removal of the interim status staff would bring forward in detail a recommendation on these needs.

This case is expected to take up to 10 minutes.
 

Not Applicable

Brian Hagen, City Administrator
Bruce Westby, City Engineer/Interim Public Works Director

The intended outcome of this work-session is for the City Council to provide staff, by consensus, direction to remove Mr. Westby's and Mr. Riverblood's Interim status, effective January 25, 2023.  There is a case on the consent agenda this evening for formal approval.