The City Council will review Mayor Jerry Sanders’ first three proposals for reorganizing city departments in early October after four council members said this week that they wanted more say on the proposed changes, a spokeswoman said today. A meeting date has not yet been confirmed.
Sanders has pledged to examine city departments to cut out inefficiency, but the process involves transferring funds between departments, which the City Charter says is a responsibility of the council.
The council decided in July to allow the mayor to proceed with his reorganization plan, known as “business process reengineering,” with the caveat that the council would get to approve the changes if four or more council members requested to do so.
In a memo this week, Councilmembers Donna Frye, Toni Atkins, Ben Hueso and Tony Young requested to review Sanders’ plan to reorganize the city’s contracting, human resources and information technology functions. Those areas are the first three parts of city government that Sanders has asked to study.
The four council members have also asked to review the July ordinance authorizing the mayor to conduct business process reengineering, saying “it is clear that is the City Council’s responsibility to approve with an affirmative vote all interdepartmental transfers.”
Consultants at Kroll Inc. also recommended council oversight on the reorganization, but Sanders did not include that in his remediation plan.