Submitted. City Council has endorsed a new organizational structure for the City of Abbotsford, announced City Manager, George Murray today.
“One of the first tasks for any new leader is to conduct an assessment of how an organization is functioning in its current state,” said Murray. “I have spent the past few months learning about the organizational culture at the City of Abbotsford, how we approach our mandate, and developing an understanding where our key issues are.”
Murray began his role as CAO for the City of Abbotsford on February 4, 2013. On June 10, 2013, he took the results of his organizational analysis, along with recommendations to City Council.
“The City of Abbotsford does many things well, but we certainly have some opportunity for improvements,” said Murray. “The restructuring moves supported by Council are aimed at creating a leaner and more focused organizational structure, and a corporate culture that is focused on service delivery excellence and the elimination of wasteful practices and bureaucracy.”
The reorganization and staffing reductions of nine management positions and one union position will ultimately save the City more than $1.25 million annually.
“I believe that we have an excellent opportunity to align the needs of our customers, the taxpayers of Abbotsford, with the way in which we provide our services,” said Murray. “That will be our focus going forward.”
Walter Neufeld Says:
Murray deserves a chance to fix what’s broken at our city and appears headed in the right direction but, as a friend observed recently, Abbotsford taxpayers are not the City’s ”customers”, we are its employer.
I concur.
The taxpayer (the City’s employer) is asking it to do a better, more efficient job. The taxpayer is asking it to provide better services. The taxpayer is also asking it’s employee to be more sensitive to it’s broad ranging responsibilities while being more honest about executing those duties.
Finally, the taxpayer is asking the City to carry out these duties within budget, without deficit spending and without raising taxes.
“How the organization is functioning in it’s current state”
The current state of operations at City Hall is that they are very broken
and voter apathy has aided this continued lack of transparency,
integrity and accountability at City Hall.
Voters need to get themselves more informed about how their tax money is spent rather than assume those, to whom they’ve entrusted to do the job, are really making the effort.
New city Manager George Murray and Councillor Henry Braun are the only one’s with their pulse on what needs to be done to attract business and citizens to
Abbotsford.