The pressures to reduce our costs and to maintain services in these difficult economic times have caused many of us to look at combining departments to allow us to save money at the top of the organization by eliminating a department head.    The obvious challenge is asking a department head, whether new or existing, to assume oversight responsibilities for an additional area for which they have no prior experience.  An alternative to this dilemma is to consider sharing a department head with another city, such as Burlingame, CA did.  The Webinar will focus on the struggle cities face when attempting to reduce the cost of top management by combining departments and discusses the option of sharing department heads between cities. 

Jim Nantell is a 40 year public sector professional who is currently serving as City Manager for the City of Burlingame, California; a City of 30,000 located on the San Francisco Peninsula, just south of SF Airport.  For the past fifteen years he has been a champion of shared services and he has been a frequent speaker on the subject in both the SF Bay and LA areas of California.  He has worked successfully with a fellow City Manager to share fire services with a neighboring city, saving $1.7 million annually for each city.  In that past year that two city partnership has been expanded to provide a joint fire command staff for two additional cities.  He has experience with sharing department heads with neighboring cities and has been a part of number different studies to consider shared services.  He currently is the Chairperson for the Shared Services Initiative of the San Mateo County City Managers Association.  That initiative is focusing on regionalization of fire service and police dispatch, as well as out reaching to the public throughout the County on the subject of shared services.