New city department formed to shepherd big Fresno infrastructure, construction work
Scarcely a month after Mayor Jerry Dyer and the Fresno City Council adopted a new budget, Dyer’s administration won approval Thursday to create a brand new department designed to accelerate engineering and oversee completion of major infrastructure and construction projects.
The council approved the new Capital Projects Department on a 7-0 vote. It could be up and running on July 31.
Fresno City Manager Georgeanne White told councilmembers that the current system wasn’t working and that a new dedicated department would help speed big projects to completion.
“What we’re doing now is not meeting the expectations (of the mayor and City Council) as far as the pace we are moving at” on big projects, she said. “We asked ourselves, ‘What is it going to take to get moving and be able to deliver these projects on a timeline that is reasonable and accomplishable?’”
The new department will initially be fueled by $50 million in California’s state budget allocation for Fresno downtown infrastructure improvements — part of a $250 million allocation over the next three years — as well as transferring about $6.3 million from the Public Works and Public Utilities departments.
White added that the city anticipates receiving ongoing money from Measure P, a 30-year sales tax supplement for construction, development and maintenance of parks and recreation facilities, and revenue from rates paid by customers for public utilities, such as water, trash and sewer services.
More engineers to expedite the design work
The proposal also adds 46 new jobs to the city’s payroll, as well as transferring 74 jobs now in the Public Works Department and 20 from Public Utilities into the new department, for a total of 140 positions. The actions approved Thursday included increases to the salary scales to retain and attract engineers to handle a growing volume of projects.
“We have 17 vacancies” among the city’s engineering teams, White told The Fresno Bee after the vote. That’s a result of other agencies such as Caltrans hiring people away by offering higher salaries. “So we’re jacking up the salaries,” she said.
A director for the department is expected to be hired from within current ranks, White said.
The Capital Projects Department will focus on engineering, design and construction management for major infrastructure projects in the city, while construction will be largely outsourced to contractors as it is under the city’s current processes, she said.
“This is the moment where we rise to the occasion as a city,” assistant city manager TJ Miller told the council Thursday. “Instead of trying to work within our structure, we went out of the box.”
The new department was not part of the budget approved by the City Council last month. White said an award of $250 million from the state over the next three years for downtown infrastructure improvements, and $80 million from the California State Transportation Agency for a grade-separated railroad crossing at Blackstone and McKinley avenues in central Fresno, were the sparks for a new department.
The Public Works Department has primary responsibility for the city’s streets, traffic signals, streetlights, curbs, gutters, medians and sidewalks, as well as landscaping and public trails. More than $264.1 million for capital projects was proposed in the 2023-24 budget.
Water, sewer and trash collection services, including maintenance of water and sewer lines and treatment plants, fall under the Public Utilities Department. Capital projects were earmarked for almost $150.5 million in Dyer’s proposed 2023-24 budget. Design of major infrastructure work for that department has primarily been the responsibility of the Public Works Department.
Public Utilities and Public Works have the two largest department budgets for the city in the 2023-24 fiscal year, at $388.7 million and $358.9 million, respectively.
Current staffing cannot keep up with the workload
Both departments, however, are bogged down by hundreds of capital projects each year – a strain that city officials said has “dramatically increased” since the passage of Measure P, SB-1 state transportation improvement money, and an influx of funds from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Because state and federal money for cities often come with deadlines, the city’s engineers are forced to prioritize those projects, often at the expense of ongoing work needed by the Public Works and Public Utilities departments. “We have a lot of water and sewer projects and just ongoing maintenance that need to be done, and this will give us the ability to do those … on a maintenance basis instead of as an emergency,” she said.
“That’s what we’ve seen happen: Projects that we knew needed to be done a couple of years ago but we just haven’t gotten to them yet have now become emergencies,” White added. “Those cost at least two times as much, if not three times as much, to do on an emergency basis in the middle of the night, at 2 a.m., when a water line breaks or a sewer line breaks.”
Council members praised the move to speed up the processes. “I think this is one of the most significant votes we’re going to take this entire year,” said District 2 Councilmember Mike Karbassi, who represents northwest Fresno.
Southwest Fresno District 3 Councilmember Miguel Arias also praised the formation of the new department, which along with additional increases across the city’s structure in recent years represent “the largest expansion of local government in probably the city’s history.”
“Is this proposal big and bold enough to undertake this amount of work?” Arias asked. “I don’t want to nibble at the edges anymore when it comes to delivering infrastructure projects. … If we’re going to have a capital department, I want them to have enough bodies.”
White replied that she believes the plan is sufficient to meet the city’s needs based on the amount of revenue available for big projects. She added that “if the feds decide to put a bunch more money in (for infrastructure), this is scaleable, up or down.”
This story was originally published July 20, 2023 at 2:51 PM.
