Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 9
So quite often you will find this resident counter here has several different computers on it which is for residents
to access information. But if you have several residents that are also filling out applications at the time, it’s really
not sufficient. And if they have questions about information that they are meeting staff, quite often you might find
that they go out into the hallway and talk at a table out in the hallway to get some privacy.
So we are really looking at how we redevelop the area, what the general flow of the workload is so you generally
will have more employees that may need to access the vault where the property record cards and things are kept
than others. So is it really the staff that’s all the way over to the left-hand side of the office or is it the staff that is
closest on the right-hand side? You see the double door entrances | think we have at least initially talked about,
it may be more friendly to our customers to our residents to use those double doors for access into the
Department than to actually have them end up in an assessor’s office, and really they are not used. So this is an
area we are looking at. There’s a conference room table in the former Chief Assessor's Office; you'll find a set of
plans down there that building has drawn up for us and we are really looking at just our initial conversations on
what are the needs of the individual employees? What do they see as their needs? And then we will talk about a
more strategic plan moving forward. And we certainly thank Risk & Building for their help with this.
Where we are: March 7'" the Management Audit Report was presented to you. It’s been 38 working days since
the audit was presented; 14 working days with an acting Administrative Director. 14 days. We have received 43
e-mails, held two hour meetings with residents, 7 full staff meetings, 8 individual meetings and 4 Board of
Assessor Meetings. We continue to have multiple requests for large amounts of data, property files and
documents. You certainly saw the load that the staff has upon their plate when they spoke earlier. | think one of
our goals moving forward is to create some real sustainable change. But there’s a way and there’s a process to
do this. So this isn’t that | created, this is something that we used actually when we developed the plans in my
prior organization. In order to have sustainable culture change, you really have to communicate a clear reason
why the change is necessary. Otherwise you are not going to get the employees who rely on you to buy into it.
You need to start small and you need to scale, you can’t just run out in haste and start making changes. It will
not work. You need to design for the short-term goals and also your long-term goals.
Everyone wants to see immediate results, we get that. We think we’ve made some improvements already but
we are asking for your time. We need to use positive reinforcement and that means publicly as well. So | am
down there every day with a staff that works incredibly hard; that wants to create change. But we need to show
the support in order to do that. And we need to realign some conformance management systems. We need to
look at management and | think we have kind of indicated this when we spoke about the Management Audit, not
just of assessing, but really look at some management of other departments within City Government as well.
Sustaining change is not achieved through a one-time exercise, but instead through the adoption of new
management practices that need to be continuously nurtured and reinforced. Creating sustainable cultural
change provides the foundation for organizations to improve, transform and compete. And | can say this; after 14
days as acting and 38 days since the Management Audit, | have no doubt, no doubt that our current Assessing
Department will rise to the challenge. | can take any questions.
President Wilshire
Great presentation. Thank you so much and | agree, the people down there are working hard, everyone wants to
do a good job for the residents and | applaud you and the staff down there for stepping up and wanting to do
better and making changes that are going to be positive for them and the City. And | also neglected to mention
that the Mayor did call me and say he couldn’t be here, he was at a Holocaust Memorial this evening at Riv.
