As City Manager Toby Futrell prepares for this year�s upcoming budget spectacular, her supporting cast members find themselves in new roles � after the latest in an ongoing series of departures, promotions, and retirements among Futrell�s management team. Most notably, city Budget Officer Rudy Garza has been tapped to become the acting assistant city manager over �protective services� � including police, fire, and EMS � in addition to carrying this year�s budget toward its September date with City Council destiny.
Garza is replacing Assistant City Manager Lisa Gordon, who was herself given the public-safety portfolio only two weeks ago, switching jobs with ACM Laura Huffman, who now supervises the city�s four planning-and-development departments. Futrell says this switch was timed to fall after the approval of a new �meet and confer� agreement with the Austin Police Association � largely overseen by Huffman � but before the beginning of collective-bargaining talks with the Austin Association of Professional Firefighters. But Gordon announced this week (apparently unexpectedly) that she�s taking a city-manager job in the Atlanta suburb of East Point, Ga., leaving Futrell with a hole to fill, in a hurry.
Hence the double-duty for Garza, whom Futrell had been considering to move up to fill a different set of shoes � those of Deputy City Manager Joe Canales, who�s eligible to retire, and is expected to do so in 2005. Canales will be handling the firefighters� contract talks, the city manager says, while Garza finishes the fiscal 2005 budget process with help from acting ACM and former city Chief Financial Officer John Stephens � who has technically already retired � and Stephens� deputy Vickie Schubert, who is herself eligible to retire and likely soon will. (This is on top of last year�s retirements of key staff in the parks, development-review, public works, and housing departments.)
So Futrell is looking at having to replace a number of �invaluable, irreplaceable long-term employees,� she says, with more to come. �By the end of this fiscal year, or in less than four months, almost 25% of my executive team is eligible for retirement. You�re going to see more surprises.�
This article appears in June 11 • 2004.