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The Incident Command System (ICS) was created to manage wildfires in California during the 1970s. It is now the principal means of managing incidents in the United States. When the City of Austin Public Works Department implemented the ICS system during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization found that the traditional ICS system did not address operational needs. The City of Austin Public Works department had to adapt the systems in ways not previously described in traditional ICS training.
The Emergency Management Technical Committee members will facilitate discussions about pertinent emergency management topics with each of the technical committee members. Each facilitated discussion will be shared with all attendees to share knowledge and ideas on how multiple agencies handle emergency management tasks.
A local agency’s most challenging obstacle to creating an asset management program often is convincing its administrators and elected officials of its importance. However, agencies that have implemented an asset management program and overcame this obstacle and those with mature programs have a lot to share. In addition, they can provide insight into their programs’ success for their community. This session will assist communities struggling with their asset management program development by providing effective and economic programs to engage their community successfully.Dan Kaup, Dave Lawry, Kyle Johnson, and Dan Randolph, all from the Chicago Metro Chapter’s Asset Management Committee, will present examples from various communities regarding implementing their local asset management programs. The committee received survey responses from 54 member communities indicating the need to share best practices, software examples, and how to engage elected officials. This session directly addresses those member suggestions.The speakers will show how they use their programs to benefit their communities through efficient operations and well-coordinated capital programs, all developed from data generated through their asset management efforts. They will feature two different software applications, not as endorsements, but as examples of the effectiveness of asset management software to the success of a local agency’s program.
This session will guide the manager through the different aspects of knowing their cost and how to apply those to promote their ability to provide cost-effective services.
Honored with the first distinction of historical designation in the City of Phoenix, Arizona, the downtown Roosevelt Neighborhood has architectural milestones still visible today. As one of the first “streetcar…
This session will inform participants regarding options and opportunities available to initiate a liquids operation into their current winter maintenance plan. Starting from the ground up is somewhat difficult without some tips and understanding of where one might go or end up when looking at implementing liquids into an operation. Class subject matter will consist of brine production, application equipment, calibration, record keeping, and outside information or sources utilized to assist in implementing a liquids program. Further information will be provided on the growth of the City of Waconia’s agency liquids operation to blending and on-demand liquid production and blending.
Throughout our careers most of us change positions and roles numerous times. Adapting to new challenges, responsibilities, and authority are keys to successfully navigating one’s career. Progressing from technical positions into leadership roles can be the most challenging change of all. As Rick Rigsby states, leadership is about combining technical knowledge and wisdom to grow your impact. During our careers, we must learn from those who came before us and then be prepared to pass on our wisdom to the next generation. This presentation will focus on two long-time public works professionals who have greatly impacted one another’s careers. Learn how a now retired Baby Boomer and a Generation X Leader supported, collaborated, mentored and then reverse-mentored each other to help grow their influence in the public works field.
The City of Raytown needed an asset management strategy for its sanitary sewer system. Raytown’s sanitary sewer system serves 30,000 residents. The system includes 165 miles of gravity sewer lines, 4,325 manholes, two miles of force main, and two equalization basins, each with six million gallon capacity. There are no combined sewers. The City engaged with NEER.ai to use a machine learning (ML) solution to identify the risk condition. NEER created and applied several ML techniques (clustering, classification, and regression) to populate missing values and score likelihood of failure (LoF), consequence of failure (CoF), and overall risk score for each sanitary sewer asset. NEER.ai produced more than 90% accuracy in predicting the LoF score for sanitary sewer assets. NEER also calculated CoF and the overall risk of the entire system. The City of Raytown saved several thousand dollars and significant staff hours by leveraging ML to implement its sewer asset management program.
Do you hear complaining or an opportunity to engage? What does it take to change complaining into action, trust-building, and resolution? Using adaptive management principles and processes, you can reboot your workplace culture with employee ownership. This session is a case study and success story of how one government agency took the challenge and committed to improving the work experience for its operations and maintenance department. The story includes learning about adaptive management principles, including learning and listening, planning, and doing. This framework provided a process for tackling difficult conversations and issues with staff while also building trust. The journey includes employee engagement surveys and facilitated sessions, clearing up work rules, supervisor training including useful feedback training, internal and external hiring process clarity, and even a change to qualification-based pay versus a longevity-based system.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the rate of retirements and caused an increase in the number of road and traffic maintenance employees resigning, being furloughed, or laid off. Some vacated positions have been either eliminated or indefinitely frozen as the economy sharply declined and agencies cut budgets. Though the economy has rebounded, the outlook for the next year or so is still cautious. Prior to the pandemic, agencies were struggling to recruit and retain skilled roadway and traffic maintenance workers. That has been exacerbated by many job-seekers becoming more selective as road maintenance operations are perceived as low-skill, low-pay, dead-end positions. Much needs to be done to attract and hold proficient and productive employees now and to build the ”pipeline” of future candidates. This presentation will discuss what agencies can do to improve recruitment and retention.