NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — A study on the Parks and Public Works departments for the City of Hutchinson will come back in the coming weeks, but City Manager Jeff Cantrell doesn't want to make a premature conclusions about what it might find.
"It's an organizational efficiency study," Cantrell said. "It's for public works, parks, it hit a few other divisions and departments, such as the airport and engineering. You know, that is a massive operation collectively. I think for years, it probably hasn't been fully understood, except by maybe a small group of people that are involved with the daily operations of it. It does take a while to understand it, because of its size and the immense function that it performs for the community."
The study will compare what Hutchinson gets for its money against other cities.
"That's tough, because we're a unique community," Cantrell said. "We have, for instance, a zoo. An airport's not quite as unique, although our airport is unique in some aspects. We have a lot of little one offs that make Hutchinson pretty unique. That has caused the study to go on a lot longer than we had anticipated."
Cantrell hopes to see it presented to the governing body late this month.
"There's always discussions, really with any government agency, of considering privatization of certain specialized operations, or maybe operations that require rather expensive fleet acquisition that's only used minimally during certain times of the year," Cantrell said. "Those are kind of the sweet spots right now that people look at, as far as saving money for the taxpayers. When you do that, you hope and you plan for making sure that you don't have a loss of service level. That's probably going to be a big part of the discussion, too. What level of service is expected?"
The city just signed a new contract with its union for public works employees in recent weeks.