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Tacoma committee debates council staffing models, costs and reporting; asks staff to pursue operational improvements
Summary
OSAC reviewed options to change council staffing—reducing policy analyst ratios, creating subject‑matter analyst pools, adding communications and constituent relations roles, and possibly a chief of staff—along with estimated costs and a request to pursue process improvements.
The Operational Strategy and Administrative Committee of the City of Tacoma on Oct. 10 reviewed proposals to alter council staffing and requested staff to explore feasible process improvements with the city manager’s office.
Why it matters: Council staffing determines how much research, constituent service and policy support each council member receives. OSAC explored options that would change workload distribution, create subject‑matter expertise aligned to council committees, and add communications and constituent relations capacity. Those choices carry recurring personnel costs and affect how council and staff interact administratively.
Current state and priorities: Staff reported the mayor currently has a dedicated policy analyst and office manager while the remaining council members share two policy analysts (a roughly 1:4 ratio). There is also one constituent relations analyst supporting the mayor and council. Staff summarized repeated requests to improve policy analysis capacity and to consider a council communications function and a professional manager (chief of staff) to oversee council staff.
Options and costs: Staff outlined four scaling…
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