IT To Be Added to AFH&SS

Random image: Ginkgo leaves.

The City Council will be voting Monday on an ordinance to create a "Division of Information Technology" within the Department of Administration, Finance, Health & Social Services.

While this will properly place these functions under one of the three departments mandated in the City Charter, it is a shame in a way that it will bring another division to the already overloaded department that may also acquire a permanent director Monday.

Plaintalker has already harped on the faultiness of the decision in the 1990s to graft Health & Social Services onto Administration & Finance to justify putting someone with a social services background in as department head. The current question has become why the city is even providing social services when, as Councilman Cory Storch often suggests, non-profits could do a much better job in many cases.

The Welfare Division was spun off many years ago to county control and Project Alert/Dudley House was shifted to an outside agency last year. The Bilingual Day Care Center and Plainfield Action Services have been mentioned in budget talks as other agencies that might be better off under outside control.

As other bloggers have pointed out, IT was established as a concept before a thorough review of city needs and formulation of a plan. It was lumped in with media functions and claimed by the mayor as an entity reporting directly to her. The proposed ordinance is meant to clarify IT's status in the organization and the ordinance also sets forth duties of the IT manager, which are very broad.

The mayor has already named Al Restaino as acting department head and he will be up for council confirmation Monday.

Restaino came to the city in January 2005 as confidential aide to the director of the Department of Public Works & Urban Development. His most recent title was director of Community Development within PW&UD. He is also serving as director of Plainfield Action Services within AFH&SS. One of his main responsibilities as Community Development director was overseeing the Community Development Block Grant process, which includes convening a group to review and rank applications for the federal funding program. The city sends recommendations to the county for the final cut and eventually funding flows back to awardees.

It is unclear whether Restaino will continue to handle these responsibilities in addition to the new ones.

The proposed ordinance lists nine IT tasks for which the manager will be responsible, including all aspects of information processing, all city technology operations, management of a citywide IT network, municipal programming (web site?), the local television channel and "media requirements." Part of the recent budget discussion was how much help he will need to do all this. There is also a somewhat nebulous "shared services" plan in the works which will also have to be monitored both by IT manager Chris Payne and Restaino as department head.

It is both commendable and necessary that the IT function be set forth and that IT be placed properly on the table of organization. It remains to be seen whether the mayor will take it as an affront to her self-proclaimed power over the IT program. If confirmed, Restaino will serve a term concurrent with the mayor. Given a possible perceived power struggle over IT, Restaino may have to walk a fine line between the executive and legislative branches.

There are many aspects of this whole situation that need more study. On the face of it, both Payne and Restaino may be spread thin over too many responsibilities. Further changes may be necessary to streamline and strengthen the organization, otherwise the net effect is just to rearrange the deck chairs on the Good Ship Plainfield.

--Bernice