There is a reorganization of responsibilities coming at North Battleford City Hall.
Some departments are being combined while other existing departments are seeing their responsibilities split up, as part of an effort to provide better service delivery to residents.
The reorganization, which will be rolled out slowly over the next few years, follows the hiring of Jim Puffalt as city manager earlier this year. A customer service review was completed, and as a result a number of changes have been made.
Monday, Puffalt unveiled the new organizational chart of city administration, which sees some changes from the way things were under former city manager Jim Toye.
Under the old chart, the city manager reported directly to Mayor Ian Hamilton and city council. Underneath the city manager were directors of Finance, Public Works and Engineering, Parks and Recreation Culture and Heritage, Business Development, and Human Resources, among others.
Under the new organizational chart, seven new departments will report to the City Manager.
The most significant change will see a department of operations and maintenance created, to be led by the current Public Works and Engineering Director Stewart Schafer.
That department would be responsible for the existing public works functions including roads, water and sewer maintenance and treatment, central mechanics and solid waste management and the airport. The major addition is the inclusion of the existing Parks and Recreation Department responsibilities for parks and the cemetery, sports fields maintenance, boulevards and the like.
Parks and Recreation is essentially being split in two. While parks functions now fall under Operations and Maintenance, the responsibilities for major recreation facilities will now be under a new heading called Leisure Services.
The plan is for existing Parks and Recreation Director Bill Samborski to lead that new department, which will be responsible for the CUplex, the Civic Centre and Don Ross Centre, galleries, central building maintenance and programming and central booking.
A third new department is Planning/Development Service. That combines under one roof the existing city planning department (Tim LaFreniere), building officials, engineering department (which previously was part of Public Works and Engineering) and the existing economic development function.
Financial services, to be headed by David Gillan, will be responsible for all financial planning as well as taxes, utilities, payroll and payables, informational technology and cashiers.
The current functions of the city clerk fall under the heading "Legislative Services," with that department responsible for records and bylaws and council agendas. It also includes central reception services and secretarial services that will see a number of changes implemented to those operations as well.
Largely unchanged is the Human Resources Services function responsible for central recruitment, retention, hiring, reference checks, discipline and safety. Also largely unchanged is fire and rescue and bylaw enforcement services, which now come under the general heading of Protective Services.
All the changes will take effect over the next three to five years, said Puffalt. The idea behind the changes, he indicated, was to encourage more synergies and sharing of resources.
Puffalt told reporters residents will notice changes right away with respect to the customer service end of things such as how calls are handled and how people are directed through City Hall.
"I think people will see customer-service wise that there will be some changes at City Hall as to how we provide central reception services. So that's a major change that's happening right away. Some of the changes at Leisure Services are starting to happen - the central booking and that kind of thing."
Other changes will come more gradually, such as combining Public Works and the Parks and Recreation department.
"Putting Parks and Public Works together is a big issue that we need to take slowly and work with people and make sure we're headed in the right direction," said Puffalt.
One notable change has already been in place for a few months. Mike Halstead had previously served as marketing and communications co-ordinator reporting to the director of business development. But as of March, Halstead has been reporting directly to the city manager with the title communications manager.
