Feb. 26—GRAND FORKS — The Grand Forks City Council gave preliminary approval to the restructuring of its Planning Department and Community Development Department to combine them into one department.
For almost 10 years, the departments have been located in the same place in City Hall and have shared administrative functions. With the upcoming retirement of current Community Development Director Meredith Richards, the city saw fit to continue department consolidation, which has been ongoing for several years as part of Mayor Brandon Bochenski's goal to reduce administrative costs.
If council members approve the changes at their next meeting, the restructuring would take effect in June, but city staff would begin the work of changing job descriptions and salary grades throughout the spring. According to Grand Forks City Administrator Todd Feland, this is the biggest change in these departments since Community Development was moved into City Hall in 2015 from the Housing Authority building.
Now, the Planning Department and the Community Development Department will fully integrate into one under a director of planning and community development. The restructuring and merger would create three divisions within the new department — Planning, Economic Development and Community Development. The consolidation means one department head position is eliminated and two new management positions are created — a net change of minus one position overall for a total of 7.5 employees.
The estimated savings would be between $42,000 and $130,000, depending on whether a vacant planning position is filled.
Current City Planner Ryan Brooks will become the head of the combined department, remaining at his current pay grade. The council did express concern about Brooks not getting a pay raise, while having more work to do.
"I think it's embarrassing to ask someone to take on another role and not give them a raise," council member Tricia Lunski said. "I'm not sure that's a good culture that we want to represent, asking someone to take up the full-time position and not get any raise."
Feland clarified that the city "look at the combined position under our current salary plan. ... It's similar to where our (other department heads are)."
That salary plan, which went into effect at the beginning of the year
, has 28 grades based on the scope, complexity and knowledge required for the role. Then employees are sub-graded based on experience and performance in a grade of "A" through "R." This new director position remains at Grade 24, which both positions were before. Department heads in the city vary between Grades 24 and 28.