Moss Adams tells Loomis council staffing, structure largely sound but flags key gaps

Consultants from Moss Adams presented an organizational and staffing assessment to the Loomis Town Council on Monday, advising that the town’s structure is generally aligned with peers but that several targeted changes would ease workloads and prepare Loomis for growth.

Moss Adams senior consultant Annie Rose Favro summarized the firm’s methodology and findings, saying the firm “interviewed all staff,” performed peer benchmarking and data review and focused on opportunities to support staff as the town grows.

The report matters because it provides a prioritized, implementable roadmap for staffing and structural changes that council members said validates work already underway and will feed into next year’s budgeting process.

Moss Adams recommended three near‑term, high‑impact adjustments: restore an administrative assistant to handle reception and frontline customer service; designate formal backup for key town manager functions; and create a community development department by consolidating planning, permitting and related functions. The consultants also recommended adding mid‑level planning and engineering capacity and exploring longer‑term alignment of engineering and public works.

“Your organization is generally well aligned with peers,” Annie Faidley, a Moss Adams consultant, told the council. “There are four areas where there are some opportunities to tweak how things look so that you are better aligned.” She listed administrative assistance, contingency backup for the town manager, engineering and planning as the primary structural opportunities.

On staffing, Moss Adams reported Loomis is somewhat lean compared with the peer cities they benchmarked after removing services Loomis does not provide (police, fire, water and sewer). The consultants said the normalized gap would be roughly equivalent to hiring eight additional full‑time employees, but they did not recommend all hires at once. Instead, they proposed targeted additions where workloads are heaviest — engineering, planning and public works — and a phased implementation plan included in the report’s appendix.

The consultants flagged public works as constrained by a largely reactive workload that limits proactive maintenance. They recommended formalizing on‑call schedules, contracting some specialized or high‑season work where appropriate, and shifting customer‑service intake off field crews so crews can remain in the field. “You should have leadership level in that department staying primarily in the office and focusing on higher‑order tasks,” Faidley said.

Moss Adams praised the town’s library staffing and performance after a recent assistant hire, but noted the library is near capacity and recommended contracting grant writing if the library pursues additional program or facility grants. The firm also advised better tracking of workload metrics, expanded use of external human resources consulting for confidential or escalated matters, and assigning responsibility for long‑term technology strategy to improve process efficiency.

Town Manager Wes Heathcock told the council staff will use the report to inform the budget and implementation steps. “Staff is looking just for council to receive [the report] and provide direction,” he said; final policy decisions on positions and funding will be made during the upcoming budget cycle.

Council members uniformly praised the report. One councilor said the findings were not a surprise but provided a desirable, measurable roadmap: “We’ve already started modeling budgetarily… I think we’re going to be in a good position to be able to do this,” the councilor said. Multiple members indicated support for advancing the top staffing recommendations in the next budget.

Members of the public who spoke during comment welcomed the report. Jean Wilson, a library advocate, praised library staffing and director hiring acumen. A planning commissioner in the audience cautioned that state housing legislation and other evolving laws make planning workloads increasingly time sensitive and complex.

Moss Adams representatives said the assessment is a snapshot intended to guide staged decisions and offered to perform deeper, targeted work if the town asks. “This type of report is really a high‑level, 30,000‑foot view,” Faidley said; the consultants proposed follow‑up “deep dives” and offered to work with the town manager to scope next steps.

The council did not take a formal vote on adopting the report at the meeting; members indicated they expect to incorporate its recommendations into the next budget and to return with more detailed proposals and potential consultant contracts as needed.

The Moss Adams report, the consultants said, includes a prioritized implementation plan and an organizational chart illustrating the proposed long‑term vision: merge engineering with public works in the long term, create a community development director role overseeing planning and permit functions, and restore an administrative assistant under the town clerk to free permit staff for core duties.

The council meeting provided no formal policy action on the report; council members instructed staff to model budgetary impacts and return with implementation options during the budget process.