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departments will have access to their budgets so they can follow and can see how much of their budget is
being utilized and to put it on the department to work within their means. I also work closely with our
consulted IT folks to provide appropriate access by departments and personnel. There are only so many
people who have access to records ­ read only type access. One thing that I have also worked on is
transparency software/a future budget drafting platform, the community and the residence, so they can
better see how the City spent their money. Part of the reason the City wanted to do something like that ­ we
needed to have the City support property taxes so we wanted to make sure they are provided correct
information, transparent information and that sort of thing.

6. What is your assessment regarding current public budgeting/funding issues and how do you think the City
could best respond to these challenges?

Affordable housing and making sure. We've worked with our legislatures to make sure there are means for cities to
take care of their large infrastructure needs. There is only so much coming into the cities, that's definitely a bearier ­
typically when you're not spending sufficient amounts on maintaining your systems, it costs so much more to repair.
Typically here in our State it is a growing epidemic ­ people are just not making sufficient wages. We are also working
with County levels ­ our County folks to ensure that sufficient affordable housing is built in various areas.

Communication, Collaboration, and Personnel Management

7. In terms of communication, what is your approach to working with stakeholders such as management,
staff, and your direct reports.

I'm very, I try and foster open lines of communication­ an exercise that I actually do with each staff member,
when I'm walking into a new organization is to be deliberate in what is expected. In the beginning I tend to
have one on one conversations with my boss, colleagues, direct reports, to establish what I’m expecting and
what they're expecting, I'm also cognizant of how certain people may prefer the early morning ­ so they prefer
to get more important heavily details in the morning vs. afternoon. I think it's important to understand what is
best for your audience, just making sure that you are as transparent as you can ­ and deliberate in what you
are trying to convey.

8. Please describe a situation in which you had influence on increasing the effectiveness of a team of people
or a department. What measures did you take to contribute to employee motivation and staff
development?

I budget a certain way so the department head knows what's in the budget. Once they begin the hiring
process and the salary range is in the ad ­ they don't work with finance anymore, they just work with HR ­
the salary and the benefits component gets negotiated without finance knowledge and what's happened in
the past is I've had to struggle to work with those departments. So what I've done is inserted finance into
the equation so that finance is involved in every step of the process so that finance can be involved and
needs to approve the dollars that are being used on the negotiation table. The outcome of that is basically ­
we were working within our means ­ it was a proactive approach vs. trying to scramble after the fact ­
figuring out how we are going to fund a position.

Closing

10. Is there anything else you would like to add?