Gestión de los servicios públicos

Performance Target Strengths Potential Improvements

A five-year capital improvement program has

been developed and adopted by the Town Board. The Engineering Division is involved in the development of the master plans for water and wastewater, which identifies capital projects on a 15-20 year horizon.

The Division is not involved in the development or monitoring of budgets for all capital projects in the Town.

There is no master plan for highways or drainage, as is the case for water and wastewater. Contractors are required to submit proof that

their first level supervisors have been trained in work zone safety.

Contractors are required to provide certification as part of their bid packages that all employees working on a job have attended a 10-hour OSHA training course.

A traffic control plan must be submitted for the

issuance of street closure permits. On State roads, contractors must submit a traffic control plan as part of the permit process. The Town’s Safety Officer in the Police

Department handles traffic control. Fees are charged for the issuance and inspection

of street closure, excavation, and encroachment permits to fully recover the cost of administration

There is a $25 fee for a trench permit.

Road opening permits are issued in the Highway Division. There is reportedly no fee associated with obtaining the permit, but there is a $5,000 bond required.

Encroachment permits are issued by the Zoning Department.

Performance Target Strengths Potential Improvements

Requests for street closure, excavation, or encroachment permits may be submitted by customers on-line or by fax.

All applications must be submitted in person.

Requirements for issuance of street closure, excavation, or encroachment permits are available at the Engineering Division’s web site.

There are paper copies available in the office. There are no requirements available on line for any permits.

Design and inspection staffing requirements have been identified for the all of the capital projects in the first year of the five-year capital improvement program.

There are no engineering staffing requirements identified in the master plans for water and sewer. There is no available capital improvement budget, however, the division indicates that there are no staffing requirements identified for any capital projects.

Staffing for design and inspection of capital projects is based upon cost of construction guidelines.

No staffing requirements have been identified. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has developed broad guidelines for the staffing requirements associated with capital projects based upon the projected cost of construction. Staffing categories are for survey, design and inspection, and vary according to the type and complexity of the specific project.

A Gantt chart schedule been developed for capital improvement projects for the next two to three year period.

The Engineering Division reports that it relies upon contractors to submit their own schedules in their preferred software and format.

The Division does not regularly meet to discuss project status related to anticipated or reported delays, change orders, staffing conflicts, etc. A cost accounting system is utilized to enable

comparisons of planned versus actual staff hours for the design and inspection of capital projects.

The Division does not report or capture the time expended by Engineers on specific projects.

5. ADMINISTRATION

Performance Target Strengths Potential Improvements

Clerical and administrative functions are

centralized in the Department, and workloads are balanced by a central authority

This is not the case. There is an Administrative Assistant at the WWTF, a Dispatcher and an Administrative Clerk at the Highway garage, one Administrative Assistant reporting directly to the Superintendent, and five other clerical staff located at Town Hall, reporting to either Engineering or to the Superintendent.

The payroll process is automated The payroll process is completely manual on the DPW side. (See below for simplified description of the process).

Personnel and payroll systems are integrated. There is no automated personnel system with which to integrate.

There is one accounts payable clerk for every

Performance Target Strengths Potential Improvements

Standardized forms are utilized for payroll input Each of the divisions transmits time and

attendance to the Payroll/Personnel Clerk in the central office. These forms capture basically the same information, but the process requires that the Clerk re-transcribe each of the faxed forms onto the “Master Payroll Attendance Worksheet”. The worksheet is manually tabulated. Then the forms are transmitted to Town Payroll

Department, which on Monday sends DPW a voucher that shows how much each DPW employee was paid. The DPW Payroll/Personnel Clerk then re-checks to ensure that all hours were paid for the time and categories reported to Town Payroll Department.

Support staff as a ratio to technical staff is in the range of 1:9 to 1:25, depending upon the degree of automated systems in use

There are nine (9) clerical and administrative staff members (including the Operations Dispatcher) supporting 64 field and technical employees. This equates to a ratio of 1 : 7.2.

The Division maintains a vendor file which reflects

vendor histories, The project team is unaware of vendor history files in the DPW or in and other Town Department supporting DPW.

Regular, ongoing financial reports are provided to

divisional management and supervisors. DPW Division managers do not receive regular financial reports from the administrative staff or from any other Town Department supporting DPW.

Clerical and administrative staff receive ongoing training in the use of necessary tools such as word processing, financial spreadsheets, customer

The project team is unaware of any previous training provided to clerical and administrative staff. The project team noted several cases for

service, etc. which basic spreadsheet skill enhancements could simplify work processes and calculations.