Vancouver to consolidate, cut departments

In a third wave of organizational restructuring, Vancouver will fold its Transportation Department into two city departments and eliminate its Media Services as a standalone department, City Manager Pat McDonnell announced Thursday.

It’s the third and final consolidation the city will do — completing a move to cut $700,000 in operation costs annually, Assistant City Manager Eric Holmes said.

It’s part of a three-pronged approach to bring the projected $10 million deficit in 2011 and 2012 down to $6.7 million each year, he said.

Along with restructuring, city administrators expect to save $1 million a year by moving into a new City Hall, and are also beginning to work with employee unions to cut $1.1 million in health benefit costs, Holmes said.

“These are strategic measures that will improve our effectiveness and help us better meet our coming financial challenges,” McDonnell said in a release. “With today’s announcement, I have effectively accomplished two of those three milestones.”

Combining departments

Media Services, which oversees Clark-Vancouver Television, will become part of a citywide communications structure, the city announced. Its longtime director, Donna Mason, will retire on Dec. 31 and suggested the change. Her $115,068-a-year job will not be replaced.

In July, transportation engineering, design and development review, as well as the Pavement Management Program, will become part of the Department of Public Works, headed by Director Brian Carlson.

Long-range transportation planning functions will merge with the Department of Community Development, under Director Laura Hudson.

Until his announced retirement at the end of 2011, Transportation Manager Thayer Rorabaugh will become the city’s transportation policy director, working out of the city manager’s office on transportation issues at the regional and state level, as well as advocate for city interests in the Columbia River Crossing project.

“This allows Thayer Rorabaugh, who has such a rich depth of knowledge, to focus on this kind of policy,” that would help raise money at all levels for the city’s streets, Holmes said of the 30-year Vancouver employee. Rorabaugh’s salary is $118,104; Holmes said he did not know if that would change.

He said that while it may seem unusual to dismantle a department as important as transportation, he said it’s part of trying to find creative solutions to the city’s structural deficit.

“In a perfect world, it’s such a critical aspect of what we do, we’d have a Transportation Department,” Holmes said. “We are in an imperfect world right now.”

Thursday’s announcement marks the third round of departmental changes McDonnell has made.

In late January, the city combined its Fire and Public Works Operations Equipment Services and Maintenance shops, which service all city vehicles.

In May, the city combined Development Review Services and Community Planning, forming the Department of Community Development. At the same time, Betsy Williams, former assistant city manager, announced she will retire by the end of the year, and Holmes, former city economic development director, moved into her job. His previous position is not being filled.

Holmes said he was not concerned about the consolidations overwhelming department heads with so many different responsibilities that they would not be able to manage effectively. “We have very talented and very knowledgeable leaders in the organization,” he said. “Also, the consolidations we’re looking at are in complementary kinds of service areas.”

Health insurance

It’s too early to say if Vancouver will be successful in negotiating $1.1 million in health care cost reductions with its unions, which represent about 70 percent of its just more than 1,000 employees.

“We’ve already had an initial meeting with the leaders of all the bargaining units just to give them information … and let them know we’re targeting $1.1 million in an approach to restructure our current plan that still preserves good health care for our employees and is a little more cost effective,” Holmes said.

Like private employers, health insurance has been an ever-increasing burden on Vancouver’s budget. It will spend just over $15 million in premiums this year, $13 million of which will come from the city’s dwindling general fund. Those costs have risen in the double digits every year for years, he said.

Holmes said the city has not begun discussing what it would like to change with the unions, so he could not say what it was looking at doing just yet. Any change to employees’ policies, including changing providers, is a mandatory subject of bargaining.

The city currently offers Kaiser Permanente or Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield to its workers.