PORT ANGELES — The City Council will explore the possibility of reorganizing the city’s Public Works and Utilities Department in a move some council members warned could prove expensive at a time the city faces serious budget challenges.
Port Angeles City Manager Kent Myers told the City Council on Tuesday at its first monthly work session that he will develop cost estimates, put together potential salary changes, draw up a proposed new organizational chart and get input from department heads for the council’s review within about four weeks.
Council members also discussed spending priorities at a time of flat revenues.
Work sessions are now planned in the council chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St., at
5 p.m. every fourth Tuesday.
At their annual retreat Jan. 21, council members made it a priority to reorganize departments, Mayor Cherie Kidd said.
“We have several department heads that may be retiring in the next few years,” Kidd said.
Other departments up for possible reorganization are police and human resources.
Kidd said most cities do not have public works departments as “encompassing” as that of the city of Port Angeles.
The Public Works Department, which runs an electric utility and has responsibility for recreation and park services, the senior center and the fine arts center, has 120 employees and a 2012 budget of $2.2 million.
The council work session was attended by about two dozen public works employees.
Glenn Cutler, city public works and utilities director, who is approaching retirement age, left the work session before it concluded Tuesday.
He was on vacation Wednesday and did not return a call for comment.
Cutler, public works director since 1999, said at the work session that the agency’s present organization has created better coordination of city services.
During the city’s last snowstorm in January, the various subagencies in public works “came together under one hat to provide services,” and it was easier for one person to coordinate the overall snow-clearing effort, he said.
City Economic and Community Development Director Nathan West said his planning and Cutler’s engineering divisions work well together.
“Where we are with efficiency right now is working very well,” he said.
Council members Brooke Nelson and Dan Di Guilio also questioned the potential expense of such a move “with the economic position the city is in,” as Di Guilio said.
“It doesn’t make sense to me to be hiring new directors to accomplish the same amount of work,” De Guilio said.
Asked Nelson: “Is there something broken in the way it’s currently structured?”
Other council members answered in the affirmative.
Councilman Brad Collins said rising costs in the utilities budget have become “quite an issue” and that utilities should be managed separately from public works.
But the goal would be to reorganize the department with existing personnel, he said.
Kidd also said she favored separating parks and recreation from public works and dividing public works into field operations and utilities, while Councilwoman Sissi Bruch said the reorganization would not necessarily mean new positions would have to be added.
Bruch, elected in November, said she heard “a lot of complaints” about the public works department during her campaign.
“I guess I feel like, ‘Let’s take a look at it and see how we can fix it,’” she said.
“Improved customer service is something we are looking for.”
Council members also discussed overall budget issues.
In an agenda item titled “budgeting for priorities,” Myers said 2011 revenues exceeded expenditures by just $119,422, leaving little wiggle room to cover increases in health insurance, retirement, fuel and jail costs.
“Revenues are not growing in virtually every area,” he said.
Myers said potential new or increased costs for 2013 include maintenance costs for waterfront improvements, the addition of a hearings examiner, funding support for the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, increasing front-counter hours at City Hall, street paving, municipal court start-up costs and public works reorganization.
Myers said no new or increased revenue sources have been identified, meaning other city programs may have to be reduced or eliminated — or taxes and fees may have to be increased.
Without being specific, a majority of council members said they would be willing to cut programs and increase taxes to fund their priorities.
Councilman Max Mania said the city needs a long-range planner.
He said it was “absolutely essential” the community be involved in deciding which city programs are important.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.