Ontario merges top city slots

Thursday, January 26, 2006 12:30 PM PST

JESSICA KELLER ARGUS OBSERVER

ONTARIO

Ontario now has one person in charge of its water and wastewater treatment facilities.

In the wake of Ontario Wastewater Treatment Plant Supervisor Glen Schoeneman's retirement, the city has opted to merge the water treatment and wastewater treatment supervisor rather than hire a new supervisor. Current Water Treatment Plant Supervisor Ken Rawson is assuming both duties.

While Ontario City Manager Scott Trainor said it seems the city has been doing a lot of downsizing through attrition, the latest move is just a way for the city to be more efficient and save money when possible.

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“It's a matter of the stars being in alignment,” Trainor said.

He said the reality is anytime a person leaves or retires from the city, officials examine how else they can fill vacant positions with the staff it has. Trainor said most of the time the city winds up hiring another person, but in this case it seemed to be a plausible solution to combine the two positions.

“We really think it can be done,” Trainor said.

Ontario Director of Development Services Steve Gaschler concurred with that opinion.

“We're just trying to do things more efficiently,” he said. “We're just going to try it. We're not sure if it's going to work.”

Gaschler said combining the two positions is certainly not the trend, nor what other cities have been doing, but in this case it looks possible to implement it at the city's plants. The city has already made such a similar move in the past with John Bishop, currently the city's public works operations manager, Gaschler said.

Gaschler said much of the city's success depends on the staff employed, and whether they are capable of assuming different or extra duties from the transition. He said the city has a good staff working for it, who can respond to the changes. Gaschler also said Rawson feels confident he can assume the extra role.

He said the city has already transferred some duties - irrigation system maintenance and operation work - to the leaseholder of the farm owned by the city near its lagoon system for an additional cost of $6,000 a year. Gaschler said, however, the city has not filled a position vacated by another wastewater treatment plant worker. Shifting the maintenance work to the leaseholder removes one responsibility from the other wastewater treatment plant employees.

“We're always looking for ways to do it cheaper, do it better,” Gaschler said.

By not rehiring for the wastewater treatment plant supervisor position, the city will be saving about 90 percent of a management level position, Gaschler said. Those positions, he said, are somewhere between $60,000 to $70,000 per year.

He said for assuming the extra responsibility, Rawson will receive a small raise, probably the 10 percent of the of the wastewater treatment plant supervisor salary. The remaining funds will return to the wastewater treatment plant operating budget. Eventually, Gaschler said, the city could split Rawson's salary - 50 percent from both the water treatment and wastewater treatment operations budgets, and save money in both funds.

Seven staff members will report to Rawson, and their duties will be more universal to both plants so they can work at both facilities, Gaschler said. In the past city staff have been more specialized to one or the other. The cross-training makes the work load easier to tackle, and it also makes staff absences easier to handle because both plants demand coverage each day.