Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 11
11, consider and take appropriate action on proposed organizational changes for transportation and natural resources and facilities management departments.
>> good afternoon, judge and Commissioners.
a followup to our discussion last week wherein I advised the court that the county executives had gotten together and developed a proposal, an option for y'all to consider as far as how to resolve an issue with admin ops and facilities management with the temporary assignment to danny here of the facilities management department.
and that option is that t.n.r.
could bring facilities management under its -- under its organization, and one of the things that I would do first as the county executive over both of those departments is an assessment to look at how best to organize the departments, bolt of them.
I would be looking at both departments.
and one option would be you leave both departments intact and you have both of them under my direction, or merge them into a new organization under my direction.
I'd be inclined to look at merging it very closely.
I think there is some savings to be had there, but I also understand there's issues that go either way.
and we want to give afore assessment of that and I would bring that to you with my recommendations.
and if you felt like you needed more indepth, perhaps impartial look at the entire thing, then we could possibly put together a team of local professionals in the business community that maybe volunteer to come in and take a look at the group.
which is similar to what I did in ohio when I took over the division of engineering for the department of natural resources sources, we did just that, we had a volunteer group come in and take a look at the entire division and that worked out quite well.
so anyway, the option available for your consideration amongst any other options you are thinking about for that department is that I would bring facilities management under t.n.r.
and we would go from there.
>> questions, comments?
what seems to me the appropriate thing to do, danny has been doing this many, many months more than the three he committed to do it for us and so we have been trying to figure out how to reorganize.
so if we are fair to the employees and t.n.r.
plus documents and fair to Travis County, my guess there would be a good result and I would say if you need the assessment take the time you need and it would help what kind of help you need because I'm talking about paid help from experts if we can locate them.
but, you know, these are two big departments with many employees so our thing would be to try to promote good government and at the same time governmental efficiency.
that's why I think it's a good deal.
the other thing is that danny has assured me he wants to share this leadership opportunity with some other leaders and move back to some e.m.s.
stuff.
>> I guess my concern on that, judge, and I stated last week that I wanted to make sure it wasn't a split in the -- the facilities management department.
I wanted to make sure if they did transition it would be a whole transition, just not partial transition.
and so I'm just hoping that that still is the case and, of course, there's a lot of other things where people have been splintered that were in the department working on different things throughout the county.
and, of course, I want to make sure that if that is that they can still move forward with some of these things, but still as far as their previous tasks before this came up and hopefully they've continued to do those tasks up under t.n.r.
so I just want to make sure that is intact and the judge mentioned an assessment, you said volunteer assessment, so is that something that you say you did up north?
>> I did.
and we had representatives from business community, engineering consulting firms and others who took a look at the division that I took over.
and they were just wrapping up that investigation when I came and it was left to me to implement the recommendations and it worked pretty well.
and just to repeat from last week, I do intend to bring -- I would ask the court to let me bring intact the entire facilities management department underneath my direction.
it would remain independent with t.n.r., from t.n.r.
until this assessment process is completed.
out of that assessment process might be recommendations to do some reorganization of both departments.
and ultimately perhaps wind up with just one large department.
and I think there may be some savings in that area if we could do that.
not talking about any reductions in force or anything like that, but I think you could eliminate some possible duplication.
>> how long do you think it would take you to report back to the court after the assessment is done?
we look at this today and approve this particular move today, how long do you think it would probably take your anticipation to come back to the court after that assessment has been done even though the department is left intact at this point?
how long will that assessment take?
>> between carol joseph and myself we would perform that internal assessment.
I think we could be back within a month or two with our own recommendations and you could decide if that's adequate for your needs or if you would like for me to look at another party to look at things.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> I did want to include in that assessment the planning position that's currently in p.b.o.
if we're going to continue with the downtown master plan and the civil courthouse, I think it's important for that person to be linked with us as well.
we'll look at that as well.
>> okay.
>> any other comments, questions?
move approval of the proposed reorganization.
what if we asked you to report back to the court in 60 days?
>> we could today that.
sure.
>> and if you discovered between now and that time that you need input from the court, then feel free to come back and ask us for it.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> is that a second?
did I get one?
>> yes, judge.
>> discussion on the motion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you very much, danny, roger and steven and miss joseph.
>> is this effective immediately?
>> it's effective yesterday.
>> yesterday.
>> immediately.
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