Discuss City Engineer/Public Works Director Role Separation

Purpose:
The purpose of this case is to discuss the potential separation of roles for the City Engineer/Public Works Director, and resulting reorganizations of the Engineering and Public Works Departments.

Background:
In June 2022, the City Council approved reclassifying City Engineer Bruce Westby to the dual role of City Engineer/Public Works Director to oversee all of Public Works and Engineering.  Meeting minutes from the May 24th City Council Work Session where this reclassification was discussed are attached for reference (see case 2.02).  The goals of moving to this dual-role position were to help develop and retain existing city staff through well-defined staffing succession plans and allowing staff in Engineering and Public Works to grow their knowledge of each other’s practices and processes by working more closely together, thereby allowing Engineering staff to design and construct improvement projects that allow for more cost-effective and efficient operations and maintenance of improvements post-construction.

During discussions, staff expressed that the dual role of City Engineer/Public Works Director would be an effective transition plan, at least for a few years.  The three-year mark is nearing an end, and staff recommends a final restructuring, effective January 2026.   More information regarding this will be discussed at the meeting and through the 2026 budget discussions, but in summary it is recommended for Mr. Westby to assume the role of Public Works Director in January 2026 so he can begin focusing his efforts on several high-priority initiatives at Public Works.

The first high-priority issue Mr. Westby wants to focus on is a space needs analysis for the Public Works campus and surrounding city-owned properties to understand how/when the Public Works facility may need to be expanded, and which city-owned properties should be retained for additional space needs.  This would include an analysis of the current and projected fleet of city vehicles, not only for Public Works but for Police and Fire as well since Police and Fire each assumed control of one of the three former Public Works buildings west of Jasper Street, with Public Works retaining ownership of the third building for use as a cold storage building where vehicles are stored seasonally.  However, additional space may soon be needed for vehicle storage for one or all of these departments, which would likely prompt the need to expand the Public Works facility and/or construct a new building(s) on city-owned properties west and/or east of Jasper Street and south of 143rd Avenue.

The second high-priority issue Mr. Westby wants to tackle is to work closely with Public Works staff while implementing the new Stormwater Facilities Maintenance Policy and the Trail and Sidewalk Maintenance Policy to ensure the implementation of these policies is completed as cost-effectively and efficiently as practical.

The third high-priority issue Mr. Westby wants to focus on is updating several existing Public Works policies that are resulting in increased costs and inefficiencies for Public Works staff, and development of new policies to better define procedures and improve public engagement and transparency.

Mr. Westby also wants to focus on succession planning for key Public Works staff to help promote and retain existing staff, when possible.

As anticipated and noted herein, the City’s needs are such that staff recommend following through with the planned 2026 restructuring.  In summary, staff recommend eliminating the dual role of Public Works Director/City Engineer, creating a Public Works Director position and reclassifying Bruce Westby to this position to serve as department head over Public Works, and re-establishing a City Engineer to serve as department head over Engineering.  This change would add 0.5 FTE to both Public Works and Engineering starting in 2026.

Staff also recommend the following changes in Engineering to support this restructuring. 

Hire a new City Engineer.  Based on current staffing goals and needs, staff recommend budgeting for and preparing for a City Engineer recruitment with a proposed start date of March 1, 2026.  This position would be the Department Head of the Engineering Department and would benefit from institutional knowledge from Public Works Director Bruce Westby.  Additional transitional support would be provided from Assistant City Engineer Joe Feriancek, who is well established in his role and wishes to continue in this role for a while longer, with potential duty revisions over time.  Other Engineering staff will also support the new City Engineer as follows. 

Engineering Technician III Logan Czech, who is supervised by the Assistant City Engineer, primarily designs and prepares plans and specifications for Pavement Management Program projects, along with other office related tasks.  No changes are currently proposed to this position for 2026.

As outlined in a consent agenda case on tonight’s Council agenda, a new Water Resources Technician position is proposed to be hired in 2025 to handle all water resources related tasks in the Engineering Department, which was driven by the recent retirement of the Civil Engineer IV position.  Hiring the Water Resources Technician would maintain the FTE's as budgeted in engineering for 2025.  

A request for a new Engineering Technician II is included in Engineering’s 2026 budget requests to provide additional assistance with office related tasks, as well as assisting with field inspections on improvement projects, as needed.  This new position would add 1 FTE to Engineering in early 2026.

No changes are proposed to the Engineering Administrative Assistant position, or to the three existing field inspections staff.

If all positions described herein are implemented, the Engineering Department would increase from 7.5 FTEs currently to 9 FTEs in 2026.  However, it should be noted that Mr. Westby was reclassified to the dual role prior to the 2023 influx of Pavement Management Program funding.  Following the influx of funding, an additional project inspector was added bringing Engineering to a staff level of 7.5 FTEs.

New staff costs would be partially funded through Pavement Management Program funds, Stormwater funds, Sewer and Water funds, and private development funds.  While the workload for these positions already existed, levy constraints and staffing needs in other departments prevented these requests from being processed.  To help meet work load requirements, engineering staff utilized contracted services from private engineering firms.  If the staff requests outlined herein are approved as proposed, Engineering’s contracted services budget could be significantly reduced.  

To provide consensus direction to begin budgeting for the 2026 restructure and to prepare for a City Engineer recruitment. 

Based on discussion.