Chula Vista saving $150,000 by merging departments
Community of Eastlake, Eastlake Government Sunday, June 5th, 2011http://www.signonsandiego.com
Chula Vista has merged its information technology services with the human resources department for an estimated savings of about $150,000 a year.
Louie Vignapiano, the director of management and information services, retired May 6. The city has decided to save the cost of his salary by consolidating two departments under one manager.
Human Resources Director Kelley Bacon took over Vignapiano’s 17-person staff this month, adding to the 16 people who already worked under her in the Human Resources Department.
“I don’t have to be a subject matter expert on every employee’s tasks,” Bacon said. “I just need to be a good manager with a focus on customer service and technology enhancement.”
The information technology services department has a $3.2 million budget while the human resources department spends about $3.7 million annually.
City Manager Jim Sandoval said the idea was discussed several years ago, but the timing wasn’t right.
“We just weren’t ready to do something like that,” Sandoval said. “Now, we have most of our services automated online and with changes to the city software, people can access most information fairly easily. We just don’t need the physical personnel at this point in time.”
Vignapiano had worked for the Chula Vista for 21 years.
He said he plans to spend much of his retirement golfing and traveling.
“I’m proud of the fact that the department is in a place where it runs like it does with the staff it has,” Vignapiano said. “Technology-wise, Chula Vista is one of the leaders in the state. I’m leaving it in a good place.”
Bacon said first on her to-do list is to try to streamline some tasks in the City Clerk’s office by giving all the council members iPads instead of the printing the weekly agenda packets and providing them in a bulky binder.
“It will eliminate all this wasted time that the clerk’s staff spends copying these huge binders,” she said. A cost/benefit analysis was not immediately available.
Councilman Rudy Ramirez isn’t happy about the merger. He is pushing to consolidate the Parks and Recreation Department with the library department.
“That makes a lot more sense to me than this. When you look at information technology and human resources, there’s really not a lot of overlap,” Ramirez said. “One is about people, and the other is about technology.”
Since 2007, Chula Vista has sliced $40 million from its $133.1 million budget and eliminated around 259 employees. The latest move marks splicing the number of department heads in half from 16 top executives in 2007 to the eight that are currently employed as department heads.
A budget workshop is scheduled for June 7 at City Hall, 276 Fourth Ave.
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Posted by Eastlaketimes on Jun 5 2011. Filed under Community of Eastlake, Eastlake Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
