Springfield city staff focusing on operational excellence

Maurice Jones: Culture under the current city manager is one of continuous improvement.

Samantha Payne: City staff are focused on modernizing systems and refining processes.

• 
• 

If Springfield City Manager David Cameron has a catchphrase, it’s operational excellence.

Cameron told Springfield Business Journal in an interview after his first 90 days that Mayor Jeff Schrag and the members of council have an appetite for operational excellence. He described a desire to move people through the city’s hiring processes more quickly and to establish an online system for accepting payments for business licenses.

Among the items on the agenda of the Nov. 17 Springfield City Council meeting is a resolution to set that body’s annual list of priorities.

There are five, most devised at a Sept. 5 consultant-led workshop, but one  – titled operational excellence – added later at the request of Cameron.

That added priority has been placed first on the list being considered. According to its description, this goal is to “Enhance agility, efficiency and transparency across city departments and council operations. Ensure long-term sustainability of city-owned infrastructure and facilities through proactive management and optimized resource alignment.”

That priority joins the list of four priorities previously reported in SBJ, refined from a summary report by workshop leader EverStrive Solutions LLC. They are public safety transformation, economic vitality, housing strategy and development processes.

Council has yet to adopt the priorities, a resolution it can handle in one reading. However, Cameron said he has already empowered his team to focus on process improvements as they work toward the goal of operational excellence.

Goal in action
Deputy City Manager Maurice Jones has embraced the goal. As the city examines all of its processes in general, he said, staff are mindful they work for city residents.

“We want to make sure as we grow as a city, we have processes in place to make it more efficient and effective to do business,” he said.

Another key figure in the operational excellence initiative within the city manager’s office is Samantha Payne, development project facilitator.

Jones said Payne is the point person to help developers and businesses through the development process.

“Samantha’s the perfect fit for it,” he said.

Payne obtained feedback from developers that helped to craft a program to make changes where needed in the project approval process, Jones said.

“Just because we do something a specific way doesn’t mean we’re going to limit ourselves,” he added.

Payne said a big focus for her has been improving the predevelopment parts of the project cycle, which give developers the information they need in an efficient way.

“It’s been overall positive,” she said. “People are excited to have the predevelopment process. It lets them know some of the challenges they may or may not have.”

On Wednesdays, representatives of all departments involved in the development process get into a room together with any developer who schedules a meeting.

The meetings can be held even before a property purchase is completed, Payne said, with city staff letting potential buyers know what they can and can’t do on a parcel. The process is free, and it saves money in the long run, she said.

“Going through that process should make your building and permitting process faster,” she said.

To snag a time for a predevelopment meeting, persons who submit an application by 5 p.m. on a Friday are given an appointment eight business days later. The meetings typically take about 20 minutes, but if a project is large or requires more conversations, they can be scheduled for longer. Some Wednesdays have upwards of 15 meetings a day, she said, while on others there are one or two. Present are personnel like traffic engineers, environmental services staff and the development review team.

Payne said the city was doing the reviews when she began in her role in late 2023, but she has changed the process quite a bit through feedback from developers.

“We changed it to match what people were wanting,” she said.

Regular process reviews
Separately from the Wednesday meetings with developers, Payne heads up a technical review team that includes everyone who is part of the development review process, including fire, environmental services, traffic, public works, information services and business license personnel. She meets with them once or twice a month to talk about how to streamline processes.

Right now, a focus is on taking payments for business licenses online, where previously only a paper check or credit card payment by phone was possible.

“We definitely need a modernization of the way that we’re doing things,” Payne said. “It’s easy when you’re really busy to stay in the same place – you’re so busy you feel like you can’t stop to try to make a new process. That’s why we’ve been stuck here, but we’re trying to get through that now.”

Payne said online payments can be made through existing and familiar city software, Springfield’s eCity portal. The portal already allows online payments for permits needed in the development process. The next step for eCity is to allow business license payments, Payne said. As a plus, staff will no longer be bogged down by so much paperwork, she added.

Jones said the goal is to make the process more streamlined and more customer service-oriented.

“We’re trying to create a culture of service,” he said.

Jones said when people do business with the city, the city manager’s office wants them to feel that their expectations were met.

“We’re trying to make you successful,” he said.

Staff empowerment
Jones said under Cameron’s leadership, everyone in the city organization has an opportunity to expand their roles and do more to serve the public.

“He’s been encouraging all of us to take on new opportunities as we see them materialize,” Jones said. “It’s a great time for us to look at processes and how we can improve things. There are a lot of things I’ve wanted to do that I have the opportunity to do now.”

He added that he believes people will find that the city is doing things differently.

“We’re trying to empower our staff in ways in which we have full faith in their abilities,” he said. Jones added that every one of his direct reports has stepped up to the challenge. In many cases, staff are trying things they haven’t done before.

“We are very open for business,” he said. “The perception that we are hindering their success is not accurate. The reality is that we’re here to help them succeed.”