Minus the engineering department: City heads into changes

That was part of a larger shift of the city's structure -- but this move cut out one full-time employee and removed the city engineer role from City Administrator Scott Langel's plate.

The actual transition is now taking place.

"Anything that takes a certified engineer we're contracting out," Assistant City Administrator Bill Cole said. "When we have an interaction with a contractor or a railroad, previously we would have tried to do more of that in-house with Scott doing the actual work and Gary assisting."

Gary Cook was assistant to the city engineer.

Langel's day-to-day engineering work included making construction site visits and doing pre-design work, which set out what to do and how to do it. Much of that will be cut out now.

"If an engineering question comes up, I just call up the party we've assigned to that," Langel said.

Solely city administrator

Now Langel, in the role of city administrator alone, is doing a lot more hands-on administration on a daily basis, according to Cole.

"I'm getting more into operations on the computer and doing some of my own paperwork," Langel said. "I relied on Christy (Collins, city administrative assistant) heavily for that, but one of the nine reorganization components was to utilize the administrative assistant in a different fashion."

He referenced the Le Mars City Council's decision to also leave a customer service/front desk position open.

Collins now acts as assistant to Cole, the city clerk, and Code Enforcement Officer Jason Vacura and helps cover the front desk at city hall.

"Her duties have been shifted, so it wasn't like she can dedicate 100 percent of her time to me," Langel said.

A change of pay?

Langel joined the staff as city engineer in 1988. In 1994, he also picked up the position of operations manager.

In 1995, his title was shifted to city engineer, city administrator and public works director. He was given a raise at that time, he said, but it did not double his pay.

Cole said that city officials have not mentioned making changes to Langel's salary.

"He's still doing, in my opinion, more than one person would be expected to do," Cole said of Langel. "What he's paid is well within the range for a city administrator for a city of our size. He does still have the engineering degree, the engineering certification, so if we have things that have to be signed by an engineer, he could still do that."

Langel said he was open to looking at the salary situation.

"It would seem to imply that by taking one-half off I am getting paid too much for the other half that I still have. Is that true or not, I don't know," Langel said. "Perhaps we need to review that to see what the industry -- city governments -- are doing."

The full effects of eliminating the city engineering department remain to be seen, the two administrators agreed.

"As we get into the construction season, we may see some impact in that area," Cole said.

The genesis of the change

The decision to cut the department came after CAD manager Mark Jordan left his position in the fall. The department was short-staffed and plenty busy.

"We either needed to fully commit to having a fully-staffed engineering department or we needed to contract out the engineering," Cole said. "We were at a crossroads."

Langel agreed.

"Something needed to change," Langel said. "If the city engineer were to guide the people in that department on a daily basis, then he or she would need to be there much more often. The change was overdue."

To fully staff the department would have meant adding two or three positions.

"We determined, at least at this point in time, the best and most cost effective for the city was to eliminate the city engineering department," Cole said. "As the economy changes, as projects change, two, three, four, five years from now, it may be a different decision."

In December, they approached council with that recommendation.

The council approved the elimination, which involved not filling the CAD manager position and cutting the assistant to the engineer's job.

The change, Langel said, may help complete projects "in a more timely fashion."

"I think we were taking on way more than we could physically and mentally handle," he said

Langel pointed out that the city engineering department's 21 years of existence were productive ones.

"The folks in our engineering department have done such a fabulous job over the years," he said. "They did a very good service for this community."

Another shift

Cutting the city's engineering department is part of an ongoing landscape shift at city hall. Earlier, when Langel was working on more of a part-time basis due to illness, Cole was given the title "assistant city administrator."

"A lot of the responsibilities I already had and did as far as human resources, interacting with department heads, conducting the meetings, having several department heads under my umbrella," Cole said. "A lot of that was already happening, they just had never formally taken the step to give me the title."

Langel said Cole had taken on many roles that wouldn't necessarily fall under a "city finance director" job description.

"As finance director Bill was never hired, for example, to deal with solid waste," Langel said. "But working with a committee as the staff person, he pretty much single-handedly handled that. That isn't really by definition a city finance director would have done, but as assistant city administrator he handled it."

The city administrator/assistant city administrator combination is working well, both agreed.

"I think we make a good team...he coming from an engineering background and me with an accounting background," Cole said.

The executive management team

Cole and Langel are part of a larger central management team for the city.

That executive management team includes Langel, Cole, Mayor Dick Kirchoff, Vacura and City Clerk Bev Langel. The group meets weekly.

The purpose of that team, Cole said, is to have a core group of people that knows all the city's different areas rather than just one department.

"They can oversee the big picture," Cole said. "And they come from several different directions, so we have a lot of good input."

Kirchoff is a "very hands-on mayor," according to Cole.

"He brings a different aspect to the meetings because he hasn't been in government before," Cole said. "He came in from the business world, which does help give another insight."

And the future...

The city's reorganization, Cole said, is an ongoing process in a time when businesses across the board are looking to decrease expenses and increase revenue.

"We'll continue looking at all departments," Cole added. "Over the last two years we've gone through several departments and done reorganizations. We'll continue to look at all phases and departments and make the city run as best as possible, as efficient as possible."