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Council reviews proposal to spin off ‘My Amarillo’ call center into standalone internal service fund
Summary
City staff proposed pulling My Amarillo out of utility billing into a separate internal service fund, adding up to 14 new call-center positions and charging departments for services. Council asked for a phased hiring plan and a pay-study breakdown before approving full staffing and allocations.
City staff on Monday presented a plan to reorganize the city’s My Amarillo call center — long housed inside utility billing — as a separate internal service fund that would charge city departments for customer-contact work.
The budget presentation said the My Amarillo operation now handles a wide range of nonemergency citizen requests — from utility billing to animal-management and traffic inquiries — and generated about $2.1 million in revenues this year, roughly $570,000 of which is currently charged to the general fund while most remains in the water and sewer enterprise to reflect call volumes.
Staff asked the council to approve moving the operation into a stand‑alone internal service fund and to add 14 new positions, bringing the unit from roughly 18 employees to about 32. The budget would let the call center bill departments — water and sewer, solid waste, public works and others — according to call volumes and then seek an administrative charge back to cover shared central costs such as HR and finance.
Council members pressed staff for details, asking whether all 14 hires are needed immediately and suggesting a two‑year phase‑in to avoid unintended labor market effects. Several members asked for the city pay study and comparative data for similar positions (including 911 and neighboring jurisdictions) before signing off on full staffing and starting allocations.
Rich, a senior staff presenter, said the office now uses call‑center software that produces granular data about call types and volumes and that the team plans to automate more interactions with the Emma virtual assistant over time. Staff said moving the operation out of the water and sewer fund would prevent water ratepayers from subsidizing services used by other parts of the city.
Staff agreed to provide a written breakdown showing how much of the My Amarillo budget would be charged to water and sewer versus the general fund, and a costed phasing option for hiring.
The council did not take a formal vote; members indicated they want more detail at the next budget session before approving the full reorganization and the requested positions.
