Musical Chairs

illustration by Doug Potter

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing: And a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. -- Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.

When in doubt, move people around. That appears to be the rationale of city managers when it comes to Austin's environmental personnel. One environmental worker who has been with the city for 11 years, has, in that span, worked in three different departments. "And I've never changed jobs," says the mid-level worker.

And even after three major re-shufflings of environmental personnel over the past eight years, the re-shuffling continues. In October, a pair of biologists from the Planning Environmental and Conservation Services Department (PECSD) will be shifted to the Parks and Recreation Department. In addition, the department plans to move some of its energy conservation workers into a new stand-alone office that will field customer service calls for the Electric Utility Department.

The re-shuffling can't be blamed on TQM or any of the other current management buzzwords. Instead, it appears to be driven by the desire of successive city managers to recreate the city bureaucracy in their own images.

In 1989, under former city manager Camille Barnett, the city combined three departments -- solid waste services, resource management, and the environmental department -- to create the Environmental and Conservation Services Department (ECSD) which was headed by Austan Librach. Under Librach's management, the department grew and eventually had some 650 employees that did everything from water quality management and trash collection to energy conservation. Librach's department, which was put on the hot seat throughout the early Nineties during the battles over water quality in Barton Creek, won some significant awards during his tenure. The most important came in 1993, when ECSD won an award at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro for its Green Builder program. It was the only agency in North America to win an award at the Rio Summit.

A year after the Rio Summit, city manager Jesus Garza took the solid waste division away from ECSD and made it into an independent office. In 1995, Librach's department was again targeted for a major restructuring. This one involved the creation of the Drainage Utility Department, and it moved 80 water quality personnel from ECSD into the DUD, which united the city's water quality, flood control, and erosion control specialists into one agency. The move also took employees from the Stormwater Management division of the Public Works and Transportation Department and put them under the DUD, which is directed by former Parks and Recreation Department chief Mike Heitz.

At the same time that the DUD was created, Garza decided to move 20 long-range planners who deal with transportation, planning, and economic development issues from the Planning and Development Department into the ECSD, a move that changed the acronym to PECSD. Roger Duncan, who now heads the department, says that under Librach, "There was an effort to centralize all environmental functions." But according to Duncan -- who also acts as the city's environmental officer -- there was a decision that the city needed to infuse the environmental ethic in all the departments. "In some ways," says Duncan, "we are finding the efficient delivery of environmental services may be better performed in a decentralized fashion."

Librach left the city in February of last year and now works for Espey-Huston & Associates, a firm that does development consulting and engineering. He said, "There is no single organization structure that is best. A lot of different structures can work. What's best is what the people in charge feel comfortable with." But Librach admits that the decision to move the Drainage Utility away from his department was not one that he favored. "What I tried to suggest back then was putting the drainage utility inside the environmental department," he said. "If you wanted to keep a viable environmental department, that was the way to do it because water was of such vital interest to the people of Austin."

Brigid Shea, the executive director of the Save Our Springs Alliance, was a city councilmember when the ECSD was overhauled. She said that former Councilmembers Eric Mitchell and Ronney Reynolds were working to weaken the department's influence and its ability to enforce development laws. By moving water quality staff out of ECSD and into the DUD, she says, "it took away the focus on water quality." She points out that key staff members, including Joe Calabrese, who had the most extensive knowledge of the city's development regulations, were moved out of ECSD. In addition, she says, "there was an ongoing effort to get rid of Austan [Librach]." Shea believes that Garza dismantled ECSD at the behest of development interests who felt that the department was too active and too involved in development issues.

While the reasons behind the ongoing shakeups can be argued, there is no question that the city's environmental department has a much lower profile now than it did during the months leading up to the vote on the Save Our Springs ordinance. But the department continues to house important environmental functions, including air quality monitoring and water conservation functions.

PECSD now employs 106 people on an operating budget of $17 million. Under the proposed budget now before the council, the department will have a budget of $24.2 million for the next fiscal year. Almost all of the increased funding will go to fund Duncan's controversial proposal for a new stand-alone energy services company that could provide energy efficiency equipment and financing to commercial businesses. As for funding sources, three-fourths of the PECSD budget will come from the Electric Utility Department. Nearly $2 million will come from the Water and Wastewater Department for the water conservation programs; the rest comes from the city's general fund and other sources.

Are there any more changes afoot for the environmental department? Duncan says, "I haven't had any indication that there are changes planned." He may be right. But if the past is any guide, further shuffling of the environmental department can't be too far away.