To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
From: Bob Goebel, P.E., Public Works Director
Title
Town Manager Report: American Public Works Association - Department Accreditation Self-Assessment Findings
Body
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Executive Summary
The Public Works Department has a 2016 goal of obtaining accreditation status through the American Public Works Association (APWA). Accreditation is a sign to the community that the Department has solid policies, procedures, and practices that are geared toward effectively providing products and services to our stakeholders. The pursuit of accreditation is also a commitment that the Department continually strives to find new opportunities to improve. The accreditation process entails a thorough self-assessment process that reviews policies, procedures, and practices against APWA’s Public Works Management Practices Manual. The purpose of this item is to provide Town Council with a brief summary of the Department’s self-assessment findings.
For the past three years, Department staff has been completing the self-assessment process. This entails reviewing current documented policies, procedures, and practices documentation against the APWA’s Public Works Management Practices Manual. Based on the responsibilities that Department is charged with, there are 371 practices we must assess. Department staff has been working hard on assessing, and sometimes developing updates to policies, procedures, and practices to comply with the full 371 required practices. I am happy to report that the self-assessment period has been completed, and the Department feels that we are in full compliance with all 371 practices.
The Department has scheduled a site visit with an APWA site assessment team that will review the Department’s policies, procedures, and practices to verify if accreditation credentialing is merited. This is scheduled for early March. Based on the excellent self-assessment work that the staff has completed over the past three years, I am confident that accreditation status will be awarded.
Regardless of accreditation status, I am extremely pleased with the staff’s commitment to look for opportunities to embrace change as a driving philosophy to evolve. This commitment entails a sense of curiosity in our employees to continually search for opportunities to make improvements. This leads to products and services that our transportation stakeholders can depend on, and I couldn’t be more proud of the Public Works Department staff and their commitment to excellence.