At a “grip and grin” last night at the Faculty Club downtown, I got a chance to meet Phil Goldsmith, who recently stepped down as Managing Director of the City of Philadelphia. During his 26 months on the job, Mr. Goldsmith served essentially as the COO of an organization encompassing 135 square miles and 1.5 million people.
We have instituted a “trouble ticket” system at my office, which encompasses 35,000 square feet, a dozen or so tenants, and about 100 users. Any time anyone on site has a facility or technology problem – Internet doesn’t work, there’s a leak above my desk, I see a piece of trim coming off the wall – they can fill out a quarter-sheet at our front desk, and our operations team is being held accountable to how well and how fast they can fulfill the request. It takes a massive effort by many people to stay on top of all of these requests.
Now imagine multiplying that by a factor of thousands upon thousands. At my office, we average about 80-100 requests a month. I can only guess that
And, as Mr. Goldsmith pointed out, all of these essential city services need to be provided with less money. Our city has lost population and gotten poorer, both of which contribute to a lower tax base. We get less federal and state money. We have made large investments in the public schools, and have had to keep up with sizeable increases in our prison and social services budgets.
As he talked about how hard it was to be Managing Director, I nodded my head in support. After all, I play a similar role at my job, only (as mentioned above) at a much, much smaller scale. Having the job I have gives me a better handle on what it means to be COO of a city: delivering quality services with limited funds, mobilizing a massive bureaucracy towards the mundane tasks that are required to keep a city going and its residents satisfied.
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