Reorganizations of departments are usually a way of doing something no one really wants to say we are doing. Shuffling around a bad employee, taking and giving power to different employees, masking shifting priorities, making it look like you’re addressing a problem, making it seem like you’re saving money etc. etc. etc. And sometimes, there may be some unintended consequences. I’m not sure which category falls into, I think its an unintended consequence, but this just doesn’t make sense.
I attended the Personnel Board meeting where they discussed changing the title of the Community Development Supervisor to the Economic Revitalization Supervisor. Hmmm . . . the job isn’t changing at all, just the title. What was once called Community Development is now called Economic Development, even though the job description describes Community Development activites. The reason given for the change is that this job was placed in the Economic Development section of the new Economic and Community Development unit, not the Community Development section of the new unit and they thought the title would be confusing with a Community Development person in the Economic Development unit.
Check out the description (more on page 3 – 4) of what this person does:
This is responsible supervisory, professional and administrative work relative to the City’s rehabilitation loan and grant programs; homebuyer’s assistance loan and grant programs; lease-purchase housing program; the Tax Exempt Rental Housing Bond Program; and the coordination and management of resources and efforts to revitalize the City’s older housing and neighborhoods. This position serves as staff to the Community Development Authority (CDA), and provides a wide rage of professional and technical support functions relative to community development activities (e.g. neighborhood revitalization, housing rehabilitation and finance, private sector redevelopment, etc.) The employee develops and coordinates assigned programmatic responsibilities with a high degree of independence and initiative. Work is reviewed by the Director of Economic Development for compliance with established goals and objectives.
So, the person does housing work and Community Development, but we’ll just call them something else. I think the last line concerns me the most, if they are looking for compliance with the “established goals and objectives” of the Economic Development Unit, what are the chances that will happen? (Or does that refer to individual position “goals and objectives”) We already know that this is a Community Development job and would probably better fit the goals and objectives of the Community Development unit.
Also, oddly enough, I don’t know why this person has the word “Supervisor” in their title, they only have one person who works below them in the organizational chart. (See page 10.)
Why not just put the job in the right unit instead of having someone do Community Development with an inaccurate Economic Development title so people don’t get confused . . . um, I’m confused.
p.s. I’m not picking on Percy, he does a great job – its “us” that don’t make sense.
p.p.s. Note, this job description should probably at least allude to the fact that the CDA is not the City and put some type of time limits on how much time is spent on CDA activities and how much time is appropriate to spend on City activities, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
