POULSBO — In the wake of losing its public works director, the City of Poulsbo is responding by not replacing him but, rather, restructuring its Public Works Department.
“We are flattening this (organization) chart,” Mayor Becky Erickson said. “We aren’t going to have a big manager in Public Works, we are going to have two managers that manage other people.”
Erickson revealed a new structure for the department Wednesday. It involves a new set of titles and hierarchy.
Currently, the Public Works Department is headed by a director, who oversees an assistant director for operations and maintenance, and an assistant director for engineering.
Instead of replacing Public Works Director Barry Loveless — who is leaving this month for the same job on Bainbridge Island — the mayor proposes a new position of public works superintendent. Alongside the superintendent will be the city engineer, both equal on the city’s hierarchy and reporting directly to the mayor.
Assistant Public Works Director Dan Wilson becomes superintendent, alongside City Engineer Andrzej Kasiniak.
The mayor will hire an assistant engineer/project manager and a project administrator to work under them.
An assistant superintendent may also be hired after six months.
The cost of the change will be $41,365. In other words, that number plus the former public works director’s salary will pay for the new salaries.
“Some money will come from the general fund,” Erickson said. “A good portion will come from the projects themselves.”
The city will begin the process of hiring the assistant engineer and project administrator immediately.
“My guess is that it will probably be about six weeks,” Erickson said. “To get it listed, have interview committees and go through the interview process.”
The mayor said she hopes to have the positions filled by Jan. 1.
Erickson said that the new management will be more hands on than the previous structure afforded.
“Right now we can’t afford to have any non-working managers at Poulsbo, people who only manage,” she said.
The mayor said the city faces considerable projects in the coming years, and that Public Works has been overwhelmed with work for about a year.
