Three City of Gastonia departments are being reorganized, effective May 12. City Manager Michael Peoples says similar services will be grouped together, and the realignment will make City government more efficient.
The City's new Public Utilities Department will have more than 170 employees working for these divisions:
- Electric
- Water and Wastewater Treatment (Two Rivers Utilities)
- Utilities Maintenance
The director of the Public Utilities Department is Joe Albright. He is currently director of Enterprise Services, but that department name is going away as part of the changes.
The Public Works Department will have about 130 employees working for these divisions:
- Building Maintenance
- Equipment Services (formerly known as Transportation Services)
- Field Operations (includes Stormwater, Streets and Traffic Services)
- Solid Waste
The City is advertising to fill the vacant position of Public Works director.
The Administrative Division, which supports utilities and public works, will continue to be a shared resource but will be funded by the Public Utilities Department.
As part of the changes, eight positions in various divisions will be reassigned to other units under Public Utilities or Public Works. In addition, six landscape employees and a supervisor now assigned to various divisions will be consolidated under Recreation.
The Community Development and Innovation Department gets a new name and adds two divisions that were in Enterprise Services. Led by Vincent Wong, the new Department of Community Services will include:
- Airport
- Community Development Block Grants
- Home Program
- Keep Gastonia Beautiful
- Sister Cities
- Transit
Because several of those divisions receive state and federal grant funding, the realignment will maximize the City’s efforts to obtain and manage grants.
“With the recent senior management retirements in Public Works and Fleet Services, it was an excellent opportunity to explore the benefits of reorganization,” Peoples said. He noted that the reorganization does not add any positions and will be accomplished without increasing costs. “The changes will distribute management responsibilities more evenly across the divisions and departments, giving us greater efficiencies as similar services are combined,” he said.