Music The End Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ And this is a meeting, a special committee of the whole meeting, to have one more opportunity to discuss the administration's proposed restructuring. We'll call it a reorganization, since the council's doing restructuring. and this is a 55-minute meeting, we hope, because the council has an 11 o'clock committee of the whole meeting. So, well, and we did have, let's see, we have a quorum. And I see the mayor is standing very patiently by the podium. Did you want to start us out, mayor? That would be great, Vice Mayor. Thank you, ma'am. Yeah, if it's okay with you all, I'll act as moderator in a sense for the administration today for the Q&A if we've got that. What I'd like to do is open with some comments and sort of a preface to provide some context, again, for the organization. First off, I want to thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time and the care that you have to examine an organization. It really is something that functions and works for council members as well as the members of the administration. You know, once several years ago when I first came on the council, the council was characterized by someone outside as, well, it's sort of like a board of directors, isn't it? And after about six months, I said, well, not exactly. because the council members do have constituents that are so actively engaged, and you are so actively engaged, then often on problem-solving and day-to-day issues, we know that you engage the administration in some sense operationally as well as legislatively. So we recognize that it's beneficial. I appreciate the questions and the challenge, if you will, often on these issues. I appreciate the thoughtfulness and the well-intended challenges. This will be the fourth public discussion about our organization. I hope that in itself represents a commitment to transparency and willingness to accept the questions and the recommendations. I do contrast that. It's sort of inescapable for me because of experience. I do contrast that with four years ago where there were two private meetings to discuss the reorganization. So I think that in that sense we've matured and that we've grown and that there's a willingness to engage questions that may exist by an informed audience, an informed group of colleagues. I've asked Richard and the commissioners to be here today to answer questions about our framework. I have a lot of confidence that this framework will encourage efficiency over the short and long term. It will save money, and it will improve institutional performance and results. It will continue to root out problems, problems like we've seen in out-of-control medical costs, overtime, morale, organizational management, and efficiency issues. Now, you all know there's no silver bullet to any of these management issues. I think it's a mistake for anyone to ever claim there is. Over my own career, I've discovered that when you think you've chased down all the problems, you've probably deceived yourself. The choices and decisions that we've made, however, in the first five months, I believe illustrate an organization that's committed to tackling some long embedded problems. Will there be more? Sure. I often say when I meet folks on the street and they may give a little praise for the first five months, I say one day at a time, the lug nuts will fall off, the wheels will fall off, management is all about problem solving. And it's going to change day to day. A good organization is one that's flexible and fluid, but also solid. It's built around purpose and mission and includes both day-to-day and root cause problem solving. I hope you'll stay with me for just a minute because context, even in 50 minutes, context is valuable and important. And I take that as a responsibility as a leader of this organization. So I'll dial back just for a little context. When my father passed away almost 40 years ago, I then believed that in a very small company that I needed to study and learn about organizations. And I remember reading a lot a guy named Peter Drucker, who I suspect some of you will know is a pretty significant management, an icon of modern management in our country and in the world. And Drucker talked about organization. The root word, the etymology of organization, not unexpectedly, is organism. And what are the characteristics of organisms? Well, just like the human body, they are living, they are changing. They're growing, sometimes they're calcifying, and they're decaying. A living one is one that's dynamic, fluid, and flexible, that's adaptive. the kind of organization I know that you all want your cities to be, one that's capable of engaging both the problems and the opportunities. What is an organization table or structure or framework? It's a snapshot in time of this living, dynamic, changing organization. It reflects a current condition, one that's trying to address current problems, current opportunities. It reflects how work is organized to achieve results around people, around managers, systems, processes, and importantly, lead employees. I've observed that we've got symptoms that, for whatever reason, we have tended to not address. So the problems escalate until they become, in a sense, almost combustible. That's a real challenge for management to deal with both the expected and anticipated crises that can emerge at any time and also plan in a deliberate and thoughtful way about the future strategically. So it's both acting, in a sense, being on the balcony, thinking strategically, and on the dance floor, being able to deal with those day-to-day things. So these problems that haven't been tackled and haven't addressed are a big part of what this structure is designed to accommodate. Now, as we look at some of the issues right on the organizational table, some of the questions that have emerged, not unexpectedly and appropriately, have to do with span of control. Span of control, as some of you may know, many of you may know, The span of control is the relationship between those who are direct reports to a manager or an executive, the numbers of people, the number of managers who directly report to an executive, an authority. And I'm fairly mindful, when I say fairly, I mean very mindful of those sorts of things. And I examined this, and when we were creating this structure, we considered the span of control. The directors, the relationship with directors and number of directors to commissioners. And in modern and contemporary management, good benchmarks for that today are around 1 to 15, One executive to 15 managers. Now, it used to be less than that. Our numbers are below 10. In the case of Cheryl Taylor, six direct reports. Beth, three. Jane, five. Jane Driscoll, five. Janet Graham, four. John Sheed, two. Clay, six. Richard is the highest number at 14. still well within General Electric's model of 20, 15 to 20. And we know that in the case of the chief administrative officer, the executive level competencies and skill sets are at a higher level. That is, the commissioner levels are at a higher management skill set level. There are other questions that I'm sure that you may have. I wanted to share that with you. The question related to Cheryl's budget, environmental quality, and public works, the total funds there that we have calculated represent $163 million, and that contrasts with public safety, which is at $154 million. My view on that, again, is that it is a question related to the placement of executives in roles has a lot to do with the competencies and skill sets of the direct reports. And in the case of these commissioners, my sense and my judgment is that we've got some competent, talented, experienced people who are reporting to them. Again, I will say that the job of management is to continuously assess and examine the competencies, the skills, the performances of those in executive and management roles. I think all of you know that on any given day, someone can get sick. Someone can have a personal problem. Someone can have family issues that compromise them or their performance. That's when organizations really do illustrate their strength. That's when we can stand in one for another. That's when teamwork becomes so important. That's when we learn to walk one in another's moccasins, and that's the encouragement that, in my view, leadership is all about. I'll close with a couple of comments that I've always found a bit of a touchstone, a bit of an inspiration. Again, it goes back to Peter Drucker, and it says a whole lot, I think, about our aspirations and our aspirational guidance in life, where we always want to improve. We also recognize that we have flaws. I often say that I have flaws. Some so big you can drive a Mack truck through them. And we recognize that. We try to overcome that. Peter Drucker said about institutions, he said, no institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be capable, as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings. I think that's a great way to illustrate what I suspect we're all trying to do, whether we're here or whether it's our audience on the TV listening to us today and our citizens and so many of our companies, frankly, today who are really having a tough time getting through this economy. So I'd be happy to take any questions now. What I'll do is if I can't answer it, and I probably won't be able to on some of them, I'll do my best. But if I can't, I'll ask somebody else too. Thank you very much, Mayor Gray. Okay. Council members, this is an opportunity. This goes back on our docket, as you know, for tomorrow. And so this is an opportunity for you to ask questions, make comments, whatever you want to say about the reorganization. So we'll start with Council Member Lane. And let me, I've got a portable mic here, a wireless that I can hand down, so that way we won't be trying to chase down the podium. Actually, if we do that, they will not be on camera. So I think. Well, it's going to be a little awkward for me to try to do it from here. They will be on camera. Can you, Cynthia says she can get them as long as they're. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Welcome, Mayor. Sir. I think the first thing I would like to say is that I'm generally very supportive of your reorganization, restructuring of the government, and I think as the mayor it's your prerogative to restructure things in a way you think best and most efficiently operate the government for the taxpayers of Fayette County. The only area that I've had some concern about, and I've brought this up a couple of times, is really in the area of environmental quality. And because I feel that the workload there is so immense and there's so many taxpayer dollars being invested in the EPA requirements to improve our storm drainage and sanitary sewers. And I think you mentioned that your number was $163 million was being expended in the environmental quality area. and that is more than we're spending in the police department, which shows what a significant investment is for the community. And I know with your extensive construction management background that you're maybe way ahead of me in this area, but I am concerned about this is the only issue I have because I feel that our failure to properly administer the expenditure of these funds and to meet the deadlines required by the EPA is probably the greatest risk that we have in our government today. And I have been an advocate of, number one, hiring a construction management firm to basically run these jobs for the government and to have an owner's representative that would actually interface on behalf of the government with our construction manager so that our administrators will not be tied up with all the nitty-gritty details and that we can get people that are highly qualified to run these jobs and supervise them and bid them and make sure the quality and the price and the time requirements are met. So having said all this, if you could just make me feel better, I'm ready to vote on this. Can you tell me what your plan is in that area? Thank you. You and I, Council Member Lane, have talked about this a number of times. In fact, in my campaign plan, I included a platform piece which encouraged an office for project management. I think project management in its best definition is not characterized by just bricks and mortar management, but management of any project that may come before an institution. It may be the change project related to information technology. It may be a change project related to solid waste department. So the project management skills to which you're referring are ones that I endorse completely and enthusiastically and have not just had conversations with Commissioner Taylor about this, but we are really digging into it. For example, Charlie has been examining the role of the program manager for the consent decree and the extent to which the program manager, which is an engineering firm, actually has the competencies and skill sets required for the budget management in an aggressive way, the purchasing management and the operational management, the follow-through on the projects. So through Cheryl's leadership, strategic leadership, we are digging into these questions, and I have a generous appreciation for your advocacy for this because we very well may need to not just continue examining this but keep dialing it up. What I know from experience is that if you've got a bad project, just as you and I have said, if you've got a bad project, one that heads south on you, it doesn't just creep along. The losses accumulate exponentially. And what you have to do in that case is really overwhelm a project with good management, gang up on it. And to some extent, that's what I feel like we are doing today with some of the issues we have, like the medical claims. We are trying to gang up on it and overwhelm it with good management. Now, of course, that's a challenge when you're hiring direct hire employees, which goes to your question and to your point of view about competent outsourcing contractors. My view for some time has been, not just in our government here, but in our state government, our governments do not a great job of managing contractors. It's much easier to hire someone than to manage a contractor. So our improved competencies in this area is something that I am really, really committed to, and I share your point of view on this, and we want to encourage that discipline going forward. And I believe that through Commissioner Taylor's leadership in this area, her experience, for example, at Procter & Gamble, which really has created many of the project management disciplines and protocols across the country, Procter & Gamble and the aerospace industry, Lockheed, Boeing have created these disciplines that you're referring to. And so in theory at least, and I think in practice from our seeing her performance, Commissioner Taylor has those skill sets. She's supported by some really competent people that you all are working with on a day-to-day basis. I also want to say, you know, one of the good things about this kind of process that we, you know, as executives sort of have to be patient with and give ourselves over to is that council members have an active engagement in these operational issues. So sometimes, you know, you can get a little brittle about it, but the best thing to do is to just say, you know, you're dealing with these things on a day-to-day basis. you see the performance of our managers, and you're giving us feedback. That's what I will continue to encourage as we go downstream. Sometimes I might not want to hear it. Maybe have a meltdown or go to pieces. I'll try not to, you know, and be patient with it. But I genuinely appreciate this point that you're making. It is mission critical for the efficient execution of the work. Right. Well, Mayor, when you were Vice Mayor, you had some criticisms of our bidding and construction management processes that we're doing. And I know you've been working probably to improve that, but I don't know that we've improved that much in a short period of time. My concern is, and I don't know that I got a direct answer on this, is it your plan to use construction managers and owner's representative or project managers? We're doing it now. But I don't mean on our staff. I'm talking about outsourced. No, we're doing it now with major engineering firms. Okay. Providing the program management. You know, in the language of the industry, there's the program management function that is operationally responsible as an outsource vendor. And then often there is a construction manager that will follow under a program manager. Through our program manager role, we are managing directly hired contractors for lump sum, generally for lump sum fees. This is for the bricks and mortar side of the projects. And the program managers are also involved in the hiring, the procurement, and the management process for the engineering firms. So that role is actually engaged today, and Charlie Martin's mission has been to outsource these contracts and these responsibilities. So I'm trying to give you the direct answer that within that department, I mean, I am giving you a direct answer, and Charlie can expand on it. And I've actually just asked for another presentation next week. In fact, I'd like to invite you to it if you want to. Okay, well, thanks. To see it, yeah. Right, I think that maybe we... Council Member Lane, I apologize. Your time is way up. Okay, I just want to say one thing that I'm going to quit speaking. But what I was going to say, it would be very nice if maybe we could have a presentation of, you know, who the construction project managers are. Yeah, great idea. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. We have several council members who wish to speak. So in order to allow Council members time and to get answers from commissioners, et cetera, I think we need to be respectful of our rules, and I'm going to try to enforce that because we have about 30 minutes. So Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess I didn't know that this was going to be sort of a meeting moderated by the administration, and about half our time is already gone. So I guess, Vice Mayor, I'd request maybe that you find another time when we can get together. I thought this was going to be more of a work session kind of discussion. And I think it's very helpful for the administration to be here to give their sort of views on the reorganization. But I think what we need to do as the Council is kind of dig down and talk through this, because I think there's a lot of things. One of the issues that I'm concerned about is essentially creating a new department under the CAO. There's a lot of functions that are being moved up to the CAO, and I think Richard's very busy, and I think that my concern is that these individual departments aren't going to receive the attention that they might receive if we had a dedicated commissioner to review them. And the things that are under the CAO right now are risk management, computer services, government communications, enterprise solutions, community development, historic preservation, planning, and purchase of development rights. And so I guess I have some concerns that these departments are going to be sort of sharing the CAO's attentions and energy and time in the same way that these other six departments are, because I see all these departments also report to the CAO, which is environmental quality and public works, finance, general services, law, public safety, and social services. And so I think that is a lot to put on Richard's plate, and my concern is that there's going to be not enough of him to go around, and these smaller departments are going to end up sort of fending for themselves. And so I am proposing that we create a division of planning and development, And so that the economic development functions and these planning functions, including planning, historic preservation, PDR, community development, and chief development officer be moved under a dedicated commissioner so that they can have a person who is responsible and can address issues that arise in those departments. As a part of that, we have an Office of Economic Development with nobody in it. And I don't know how we hired a chief development officer if there wasn't a chief development officer already established. The reorganization purports to create a chief development officer, but we've already hired a chief development officer. So I don't know quite how that works. So as a part of this proposal is that we would eliminate the Office of Economic Development because I guess I'm happy for the administration to change that to a chief development officer, but at the same time, if we have an office that doesn't have anybody in it, I'm just wondering why it's there. The language office is routinely used, routinely used in any organizational environment to describe a function. And it may and often does include just one person. It certainly has, in my experience, in both the not-for-profit and the for-profit world. And in my campaign, I said that I wanted to elevate economic development and jobs creation, and that's what I did through the mayor's office. That is traditionally has been the privilege of the mayor to identify priorities and then to implement those priorities. So that's what I did. I'd like to finish if I can. May I finish? Well, Mayor, we have a work session, and I have about a minute left, Mayor. Okay, fine. So I guess my concern is that what we're doing essentially is creating a de facto department, and one of the things under our charter is that this council actually acts to approve and ratify folks who are appointed as commissioners of departments, and so I think that's kind of what we have here. Well, as I said, that's one of the wonderful things, marvelous things about the legislative process and democracy is that we can have different points of view. I come from a background of economic development. I'm not going to be timid or bashful about it. I've worked hard in that area. I feel like I have skill sets and competencies that need to be deployed, and I wanted to do that out of the gate. There can be different points of view about execution on it or implementation on it. I respect that. I've engaged the conversation willingly. I think that the, in fact, encourage the concept and the development of an elevating the role of planning. It preserves and enhances and builds our brand. And we're certainly willing to talk about it. We have tough budget these days, and so sometimes we have to make do with what we've got. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor, for coming in today. Yes, sir. I just have a couple of topics I want to talk to you about. The first one is the PIO. One of the concerns that I have is that if you do what you want to do with the PIO, that it lends itself to being politicized. And I'll give you an example of something that concerned me. As the chair of the Public Safety Link, the other day I sent an email asking for additional information about the clear unit. And the response we got back instead of the information was that your office had taken this over and you were going to run this out of your office and there were going to be sort of individual meetings instead of following the link process where we come back in and the public gets to hear the information that's provided, et cetera, et cetera. And including an email where your chief of staff and your press secretary, And I don't understand what was going on there. I'm not going to ask you to answer that question, but I'm going to ask you to answer briefly, because I only have four minutes left and I have one more topic, is how do you get me to the comfort level that if you do what you want to do with PIO, it doesn't become politicized? Council Member Myers, you know, I have learned in this role and the previous role that there are urban myths that can emerge and be created despite best intentions and things that I, as mayor, may never know about. And the comment that you just made, I have no idea why someone might have said what they said. The notion of politicizing is, I just think it's a red herring. This is a government like we have with the level of engagement of the council and the level of civil service protections that exist, even up to the director level, which is much greater than any of our benchmark cities, provides a level of transparency. and openness and access that is really without precedent. So you have a lot, or as a council member and others, have a lot of engagement with our directors, and that is demonstrated through this budget process, the level of interaction that you've had directly with employees, with directors, asking questions, getting feedback. You know, that illustrates as much as anything. What we're trying to do is simply organize work around managers, competent managers. Okay, thank you. The second question I have, and if I could have Connie come up, please, is the issue of budgeting going under finance. And I know that you said that you're following the charter on your reorg, and it seems in many ways you did that, except when it comes to putting budgeting under finance, that, according to the charter, is under the CIO. So a couple years ago, we had a link process when we did not have a director of budgeting. I know, and I won't put people on the spot, but there were people in government that were very concerned with putting budgeting under finance. And now that's the movement we're trying to make. I think that's a very dangerous thing to do. That's the one thing I cannot support in your reorg. And I want to have Connie just speak briefly. As her having, can you state your last position inside of government? Can you just please be at the podium? Okay. Thank you. Mayor, thank you. My name is Connie Underwood. At the moment, I'm a budget analyst for the council. In my previous life, I was administrative officer senior in the Division of Budgeting for 20 years, I believe. I had expressed my concerns about this to a couple of council members. I don't think I actually expressed it to everyone. And my concern is, I mean, the charter had budgeting be separate for a reason. It's sort of like putting the fox in charge of hen house, because you're putting the person who's in charge of writing the checks also in charge of putting the money in place to write the checks. I think it changes the level of importance of the budgeting process and budgeting in particular. and the CAO doesn't hear both voices. The view of finance and the view of budgeting are two really different views of the world, and I always thought it was important that the CAO got to hear both sides of that, including having the Division of Budgeting be able to express concerns about why things aren't being done as quickly as they need them to be or anything of that nature. I expressed this to Council Member Myers. I've expressed it to the Vice Mayor. It's my personal consideration that I don't think that they should be together and that the Council has the Division of Budgeting work with the CAO directly to create the budget for a reason. Thank you, Vice Mayor. If I could just say one thing, if the Mayor responds if he wants to. A couple weeks ago I asked in a meeting, Ms. Hupp, this whole issue of moving people around their skill sets. And part of the explanation for doing this particular move was because the Commissioner of Finance has some expertise in that area. The issue is, just what Connie said, I agree with that wholeheartedly, but also that if the Commissioner of Finance leaves and you have to bring a new one in, now all of a sudden you've moved us over there and you've got to find somebody with that skill set. in order to make that still work. So I guess this goes outside of what the charter lined out. You said that your restructure fits with the charter, so I give you the last comment. I'm really not sure of the question. Why don't you rephrase it, please? I guess my premise is that I disagree with moving budgeting under finance. Okay, right. I did what I've done pretty much always in a management career, I recruit people for a role, try to recruit talented people. I feel like I did more than a responsible job in recruiting the former chief financial officer for the city of Louisville to be our commissioner of finance. I ask questions. I ask for ideas. I listen. I asked Jane what she felt from her experience would be a best practices model, best of class model. She's examined this not just in Louisville, but other cities. And this was a recommendation. It was like a, not a big deal. So it's classing work around talented executives, the work that naturally flows. So that's my response to it. Jane, you got anything you want to add to it from what I've said? If you got something that, you know, there's a mic. If you could, Mayor. They're routinely meeting together. So I look at that and I think, you know, this is an appropriate consideration. That's number one, because the work activities are aligned. And then you think, all right, just like Connie just said, are there any necessary checks and balances or preventive measures that need to be placed here that might be necessary. Can I? Can you come to the podium, please? Sure, I'd like you to add whatever. Welcome, Commissioner Driscoll. Thank you. I would just reiterate what the mayor said in terms of looking at reorganizations, and I've been involved in several, including a merger of two governmental entities and looking at doing some best practice research, actually seeking the advice of some CEOs of some major corporations in that environment. And it was my recommendation to include budgeting because of the importance of how the pieces of finance fit together and how decisions in one area impact the other in terms of a financially responsible point of view. It is not the concern in some major cities that there is some influence kind of issue. In fact, in several major cities, Atlanta, Greensboro, St. Paul, Indianapolis, Tampa, et cetera, budget is a piece of finance. There are what we should be concerned about are the controls that are built into the systems, and that's what the Commissioner of Finance is responsible for doing, ensuring that the integrity of the financial matter, all the financial matters of the government are addressed. So, again, it is not unusual. There are instances where a budget is separate, but you need to compare apples to apples. You need to look at those organizations compared to ours when you are doing those comparisons. And, again, the internal controls, the checks and balances, if you will, are built into this government as well as the council and the relationships between the division directors. In terms of building the budget, all of us were there with the CIO, making recommendations, doing different scenarios to present to the mayors. We built the budget. So no one was left out. Opinions were expressed wholeheartedly, and not everybody agreed with everything, and that's okay. That's what we want. We want to encourage that discussion. So, again, just wrapping up, I can show you where other cities have functioned with this structure, and they function very well, and so we would recommend that still. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess one of the other concerns I have is the movement of, I guess, HR to the law department. And I guess, Commissioner, if I might help me understand how this works, because my instinct is that the law department should be more independent and not involved in operations. And isn't HR involved in more of the operations side? Commissioner Graham, welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. That's actually a good question, which we've talked about within the law department. I think the importance is you want to have legal advice given by the lawyers, but you don't want the lawyers involved in investigations and fact-finding and things that could conflict them out in the future. So we've talked about that pretty extensively and have some plans about how we're going to do that. But it's not going to be a big change from the way we operate now because there's a lot of overlap between law and HR, just in EEOC filings and pre-employment testing, things like that. But we've talked about keeping the lawyers separate from the fact-finding day-to-day aspect. Because in some ways an internal law department is like sort of a whatever is it, the federal government. But it's a sort of standalone investigative type thing where, like a solicitor general in some ways, where the law department sort of helps to be independent and therefore supervise the operations of other departments. And I guess if they're contained within law, there's a conflict there that if some of the problems are happening within HR in the law, maybe the rest of the government is not going to find out about it. I think to answer your question, one of the reasons I think it's a good move to put HR under law is because of those compliance areas. I think sometimes when legal questions come up, particularly in the employment context, if there's not a quick answer given or quick legal advice given, sometimes things can get bigger than they really need to be down the road. So I view it as a good move to put HR under law. And because of all the contact we have with them already, I think as long as we've got proper procedures in place, I think we'll be fine. Well, we talked about this in the link committee. Help me understand, again, if that's true, what you just said, why risk management isn't moved to law. My view on risk management is it's operating really well with Richard under the CAO. And my view is I've got a pretty full plate with putting HR under me. Yeah, and I think it's operating well right now, and I don't see the need to change that. And I think it's kind of nice having Richard be in charge of risk management because of, you know, just all of the things. He sees the whole picture, whereas sometimes law doesn't see all of the other things going on in all divisions. Is risk management essentially a legal function, understanding what areas of liability are on the forefront and then rising out in other cities and being able to make plans to prevent those? I just don't understand why HR is a legal function but risk management is not. Because what you just said in those two departments are the opposite. Well, I think on risk management, and I don't pretend to be an expert on risk management, but my understanding is there are different aspects of risk management. There's a training aspect to it. And that's more in the way that there are philosophical beliefs regarding how risk management should function in different agencies. I think with law and HR particularly, there's so many legal advice elements to HR that may not necessarily be there with risk management. If you view risk management as proper training so that we don't have, you know, bad safety elements going on in our agency, I think it's a little bit different. Thank you. And I guess I'd like to add to that if I can. Sure. I look at it, the risk management function in a matrix organization, which is what we operate in because it's a service organization. A matrix organization has operational functions along the top of the org chart, and it has functional operations. And sometimes those functional operations, in this case risk management, are more operationally focused, and that is the case here. So the day-to-day operational issues are appropriately and can be appropriately lodged within a reporting function at the chief administrative officer level. HR has embedded within it, especially in government, many legal issues. There's not a single one that, in my memory at least, that doesn't often, if there is a problem or an issue, it often is also a legal issue. So it naturally migrates into a legal framework. I also want to go back to what Peter Drucker said about organizations and about work being aligned like work activities being aligned. And also we make judgments based on the competencies and skill sets of those who are executives or managers in any organization. And we align work and responsibilities around people and their skill sets as well. If I may just say it. So that is to say that there's no science to this. Council Member Martin, what? I just would like to say something closing. Okay, go ahead. I appreciate it. I think right now, and, Mayor, I understand there's a lot of thought that has gone into it, but I have concerns that's been expressed so far about the politicization of some of these items by putting them under the CAO. I view the CAO as the political arm of the government. And I know we disagree. Well, I would like to just say that let me add as a footnote. The PIO in the previous administration was under the chief information officer, which was not a confirmed position by the council. It is today where it was before, in the chief administrative officer's jurisdiction. authority. So it is back where it was before the last administration in a confirmed position. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay. I have some questions for CAO Maloney. And I have only five minutes, so I want to kind of ask them quickly because I'm going to run out of time. And we have a couple more council members. Under grants, it also says one place special programs and another place special projects. Can you tell me what special programs or special projects means? And I'll also be wanting to ask Susan Bush some questions if you don't mind to work your way over, please. The name that's being recommended is Grants and Special Programs, and that will be the new name for community development. So what are the special programs? The programs will be the existing programs that are underneath there, such as the housing programs and the rehabilitation. Okay, so the same programs will be there. Yes, the functions will not change, only the name. Okay, that's all I needed to know. Thank you. And then I wanted to ask Susan Bush, Director of Environmental Policy, some questions about the transfer of some folks in forestry. If I understand this correctly, two people, the urban forester and the arborist technician will come to you and then the arborist will stay with streets and roads and I would like to know what the urban forester and the arborist technician will be doing for you? Vice Mayor, as you know, currently the forestry program is in Streets, Roads, and Forestry. And there's two components to that. There's the operational component and the programmatic. And right now we're very heavy in the operational with the chainsaws and cutting trees, but light on programmatic. And so the urban forester and the arborist technician would come into DEP with the goal of developing a robust forestry program to develop an urban forest plan for the county, to deal with the emerald ash borer, which we're already seeing now, and to really do a lot with public outreach and education, which I think there's a strong desire and need for. So those are the main things they'll be working on. Okay. So I really applaud the expansion of a real, true urban forestry program. I think that's a good idea. We've not really had that. And there has been a lot of desire expressed to do that, and that's important for this proposal. So the operational part will stay with streets and roads? That's correct. Okay. Thank you very much. Just a couple of comments. I wanted to, you know, Mayor, I respect everything you said about people and their skills, and I'm not really asking you to respond to this necessarily, but the finance budget piece clearly does not fall within the charter. The charter specifies what finance has and where budget is. So if we as council members approve this, we have to change the charter. That's the fact of the matter. And so that we're going to have to decide whether we want to do that. Budgeting is supposed to be in administration. Accounting and all those other things are in according to the Charter. Now, you may have a different interpretation, but the words budgeting and finance are used in the Charter. And then the other thing I wanted to say before my time runs out is that under the Chief Development Officer, in the information that CAO Maloney gave us, it does say that the chief development officer would be working on community and regional planning efforts. And I go back to what Council Member Martin said. I really think that if that person is going to be working with planning, you know, my question is why are we not putting planning sorts of things over there? And I know it could be two different ideas of planning, but, you know, I remember your fresh start plan, which had great ideas in it, one of which was, I believe, a development and planning guru. So if you have a comment, that's fine. We have two questions. I think one has to do with budget and the charter. Right. Let me thank you, Vice Mayor. Let me just real quickly address the charter. I think there's two different issues going on with the charter. There's a policy issue about proper oversight and finance. But the law department's opinion is, pursuant to 6.12 of the charter, you all have great power to reorganize government in any way that you want, including that. I think we know that. It's just you haven't asked us to go back and look at we would need to change part of the charter in 6.06. I really don't think you would. You don't think it matters that it says where budgeting should be? And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but my reading and the law department's reading historically has been that Section 6.12 is kind of the overriding section in the charter, which allows you all broad authority to reorganize government, notwithstanding some of the specific areas in which the urban county government was originally organized. So we would leave the charter the way it is, which says budgeting is not under finance. Right, because if you look at 6.12, even though the charter sets forth specific ways in which the government was initially organized, it gave you all broad flexibility to change that. So I think the legal interpretation, and I believe I'm historically correct on this, Linda, has always been that you all can change things within that without having to redo the charter. And I just wanted to point that out. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. I need to answer. We have three more Council Members. I need to answer. I need to comment on the question regarding the Chief Development Officer. Sixty seconds. In the consulting, in the job description, it's pretty clear that it says that for the Chief Development Officer, In that job description, it says that the chief development officer will be consulting and advising on regional and community development initiatives. And Kevin Adkins' background is precisely focused in that because of his background, because of his experience in Senator McConnell's office and this broader and wider community. Thank you. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'll try to be brief. this is the third reorganization that I've sat through with a third different mayor, each one tweaking it just a little bit to allow them to run government better. I don't have a problem with the tweaks necessarily, because I do think you are the chief administrative officer, even though we do have a CAO of government. I would caution against reorganizing around personalities, because as you know and as seen too, personalities do change. unlike the business world, personalities in government even have a more dramatic and sometimes institutional effect on what happens in a program. And I do have some caution about environmental quality or Commissioner Taylor taking over public works because of a personality is what I'm gathering while we're doing it, and I don't have a problem with her personality being able to handle it. But should we lose her, we're going to have some serious shoes to fill, and I'm not sure we can do that overnight, but I would just caution against that. The other issue with the budgeting, we do have revenue that's already under finance, and to me revenue is just as important as budgeting, so I necessarily wouldn't be opposed to putting budgeting underneath the finance commission as long as the charter allows us to do so. I would want one comment, Mayor. Customer Gordon kind of went down the path but didn't go where I want to take it, is we mentioned putting historic preservation, PDR, and planning, which will hopefully in one day take over zoning function enforcement under the CAO. We alluded to last Tuesday of creating some type of planning commissioner. I think you mentioned in the Fresh Start you talked about a world-class planner type position. Are you opposed to creating a planning commissioner at this point? I don't see it on the reorg. What are your thoughts on our conversation last Tuesday? I know you weren't here and able to be part of it. What are your thoughts? You've got two questions there, Councilman, so I'll try to do both of them. One, in the comment about personalities, I think there's a, and I respect your background in management as well, so you'll know what I think I'm speaking to here. The definition or an attribute called personality is often used, and people will say management style as well. I tend to steer away from that language myself because I think it's much more valuable to speak about competencies and skill sets. And that is the language. I've never used the word personality, frankly, because I'm so careful and sensitive about it. It is about competencies. It is about skill sets. And what Cheryl brings to the table in this role are those competencies that were honed over time at one of the world's best management, training, and development institutions, Procter & Gamble. And so that is the attribute that I feel like is being measured in the selection process. Now, does personality often have an influence?