City of Odessa creates new task force

Your Basin
by: Jesse Zaragoza
Posted: Dec 11, 2023 / 06:10 PM CST

ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) – The City of Odessa has created a new task force with the goal to improve upon efficiency and effectiveness within the organization.

“As an organization over time we didn’t want to get into we do things this because that’s the way we’ve always done them. “Says City Manager John Beckenmeyer. “And we also knew that we needed to look at the ordnances and the procedures and policies that we’ve been operating under because it’s been a while since some of them have been updated.”

Included in the task force are managers and directors from City Management that work in Audit, Finance, Risk Management, and Communications. 

An important reason for the creation of this task force is to review current ordinances that are enacted right now. They want to see how well they work into the current operation of City Departments. In addition, the task force will also review Administrative Procedures and Personnel Polices for relevance and outdate ones.

“Most of the departments in the city have been created through ordinances and different administrative policies and so we needed to look at those and see if they still apply. See if the ordnance needed to be updated or if the department itself was running still under the charge it had been given.”

City Manager Beckenmeyer explains that the review of each department will take up to three weeks minimum. The results of these reviews will give City Management an idea on what is recommended to change.