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Consultants present organizational assessment; recommend assistant city manager, admin support and IT investments
Summary
RAFTELUS consultants told council that Arroyo Grande has strong customer service and stability but recommended an assistant city manager, more administrative support, IT capacity, and an economic-development function to meet ambition on infrastructure and growth.
External consultants from RAFTELUS presented an organizational and operational assessment to the Arroyo Grande City Council on May 13 recommending a set of structural changes and phased staffing additions to align the city with its 2025 goals.
Consultants Emily Esselton and Rebecca Hoskin praised staff for high customer service and recent technology investments but said the city manager’s span of control “seemed to be a little broader and larger, which left little time for some of the other strategic goals.” Their recommendations included creating an assistant city manager to split oversight and free strategic capacity; formalizing a planning manager supervisory role in Community Development; adding administrative front-desk/executive-secretary capacity; increasing HR executive-secretary time to full-time; automation of public-records request tracking; strengthened IT staffing or contractual capacity; and a focused economic-development coordinator to implement priorities from the general-plan update.
Council debate and direction: councilmembers voiced differing views about timing and fiscal trade-offs. Some members said the assistant city manager role is necessary to deliver a major capital workload linked to Measure E and a growing pavement program. Others urged patience and said they wanted to let recent leadership changes settle before adding major new positions. After discussion council voted 3–2 to receive and file the report and directed staff to advance recommendations into the budget-development process and return with budget options and phasing alternatives for consideration.
Why it matters: the city is preparing for a multi-year capital program and a stated council focus on economic development; consultants’ recommendations aim to add capacity and modernize systems to support delivery. The council asked staff to include variations in the next budget step showing timing and funding options for the assistant city manager and economic-development roles.
Ending: Staff will present preliminary budget scenarios on May 27 that incorporate council direction and options for phased implementation of the report’s priority recommendations.
