Lack of staff is stalling improvements in computer functions, the city’s IT manager told the City Council in Tuesday’s budget session.
Since his hiring in February, IT Manager Chris Payne has had to cover all the bases largely by himself. Payne is seeking a boost in salaries and wages from $131,506 to $162,744 and in expenses from $35,000 to $154,950, with a $100,000 tab for outside consultants. He is also in charge of Media, for which he is seeking a budget increase from $70,000 to $113,100.
Payne painted a bleak picture of needs in city offices, including staff training, linkages among divisions and computer replacement. The city’s website, he said, needs to be completely redesigned and a shared services plan with the Board of Education must be worked out.
In preceding budget talks, numerous division heads have told the council how much better their offices would function without having to rely on cumbersome manual records on paper. On Tuesday, council members were supportive of Payne’s goals.
“This is one of the most important things we can do for our residents,” Councilman Rashid Burney said, envisioning citizens taking care of their business with the city online, from home.
“They would not have to come to City Hall,” he said.
Burney called Payne and two recently hired temporary workers “a skeleton staff.”
But council members also questioned the fact that Payne’s title has never been integrated into a department structure mandated by the city’s special charter. At present, Payne reports directly to Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs, in contradiction to working under one of the three department heads.
To correct the situation, City Council President Annie McWilliams said an ordinance to place IT/Media under a department head may be offered at this month’s council meetings. The agenda-fixing session will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall Library and the regular meeting will be 8 p.m. Nov. 22 in Municipal Court. Both meetings were moved up a week from their original dates in order to make room for the budget talks.
The last budget session is tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Senior Center, 400 E. Front St. Topics will be the capital improvement plan, the Planning Division and economic development.
--Bernice Paglia
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I hear a lot of broad desires for IT, but no step by step plan going forward. The organizational place for IT within the City government hasn't been straightened out yet. Until IT and Media are formally separated, one will interfere with the other. Meanwhile, the use by the city of another 'consultancy' is more likely to mean overspending and handing work to a 'connected' vendor. Before any more money is budgeted for IT we should know exactly on what the money will be spent and how it fits into a strategy that is spelled out. Let's look before we leap. The object isn't spending money, but spending money with forethought and for quantifiable results.
ReplyDeleteThe functions of the IT Department are the same as those which were under Data Processing which was a Division under the Department of Administration and Finance. So what process moved that from under this Department to under the Mayor?
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