11-19-2002 CC RPT 31 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CITY OF RIVERSIDE ill-America C? People Serving CITY COUNCIL MEMORANDUM IIII People l'¢,~s HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL DATE: November 19, 2002 ITEM NO: 31 SUBJECT: SENIOR ENGINEER POSITION FOR THE TRAFFIC ENGINEERING DIVISION OF THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT - SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIOP BACKGROUND: In January, 2002, the City retained Management Partners, Inc. to conduct a management review of the Public Works Department. The results of this review were presented to City Council on July 9, 2002 and identify 50 recommendations for improvement. Some of these recommendations relate to the Traffic Engineering Division. This division is responsible for traffic signal design, construction, inspection, maintenance, and operation of 320 traffic signals throughout the city. The key functions of the division are: · Neighborhood traffic safety · Downtown parking · Signal design, construction and inspection · Signal coordination · Investigations and traffic studies · Signing and striping designs · Preventative and emergency traffic signal maintenance The Traffic Engineer is responsible for managing the operations of this division. The division consists of 13.0 FTE with mostly technical or administrative staff. The Traffic Engineer is the only licensed employee in the division who handles complex engineering issues. There is presently a lack of professional staff to assist the Traffic Engineer with higher level responsibilities and there is no managerial backup when the Traffic Engineer is absent. Additionally, there is presently no career ladder in place to encourage succession planning. Management Partners, Inc. also states that the professional staffing for this function is Iow as compared to other similar sized municipalities they have worked with. As the report states, "Having only one engineer to operate the traffic function for a city the size and population of Riverside is understaffing the function, resulting in a weak structure in terms of succession planning and technical expertise for the traffic function. The position should be an engineer position rather than a technician in order to provide additional technical expertise and backup for the Traffic Engineer." Existing staff resources are currently insufficient to effectively address the increasing requests for neighborhood traffic studies, design functions and investigations. Therefore, staff is requesting to add one Senior Engineer position who will be able to handle some of the workload for this division, particularly with complex traffic engineering issues and major transportation studies. The position will also oversee the design of new traffic signals and serve as backup to the Traffic Engineer in managing the division. 50% of the cost of the position will be charged to capital funds for traffic signal design work. The remaining 50% cost will be born by the General Fund. 31-1