Austin city leaders say they think they can remedy the shortage of staff that has plagued Austin Water by improving work culture and paying workers at the city’s water treatment plant.
An audit by outside experts has identified a number of issues for Austin Water, and top city utility officials say they are working to resolve them.
The audit was ordered by the Austin City Council last February after a series of high-profile problems with the city’s water supply. An audit by the University of Texas Center for Water and the Environment found that Austin Water’s biggest problem stemmed from its organizational structure, where the auditors stated that there was “a serious mismatch between senior management’s efforts to improve operations at Austin Water with minimal operating costs” . staff involvement.
Austin Water serves over 1 million customers and has an annual operating budget of $654 million.
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The review identified more than 50 ways in which the utility can improve performance and avoid major service disruption incidents, and one of the key recommendations was the need to address staff shortages.
During a presentation Wednesday before the city council’s audit and finance committee, Lynn Katz, director of UT’s Center for Water and the Environment, said her team’s audit showed there were not enough staff to meet all needs at the city’s three wastewater treatment plants. .
“One of the things we noticed is that the organizational structure has some issues with internal communications, emergency response and retention needs,” Katz said.
The report states that the top priority is to hire and retain employees at a basic level. According to the report, this is the key to solving many other organizational and management challenges at the Ulrich water treatment plant, the largest of the city’s three wastewater treatment plants.
According to the report, about 30% of positions are currently vacant at Ullrich and other wastewater treatment plants.
Greg Mesaros, longtime director of Austin Water, expressed similar concerns about Austin Water’s staffing when he announced his resignation last year, citing “huge” turnover and a lack of longtime operators with years of experience.
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Katz said a number of Austin Water employees have expressed concerns about compensation and the lack of training.
“As with any organization, culture is key,” Katz said. “Being able to work in a place where you are comfortable with the system, being compensated appropriately and being recognized for the work you do is how you create the type of culture that everyone feels involved in.”
The external review makes 53 recommendations to improve performance and resiliency at the Ulrich plant, and Austin Water agrees or partially agrees with 49 of those recommendations, the City said. They said that work on 19 recommendations had already begun.
Shay Rolls Roalson, who was appointed director of Austin Water in December, said Wednesday her team will return in February with a more detailed plan, but she said a number of steps have been taken to address the issues outlined in the report, including changes, related to the recruitment, compensation and training of employees.
Roalson said that Austin Water’s human resources department is working on a new hiring strategy and that its employees are reviewing the payroll study and are working to implement it.
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“We are already working on many of these recommendations, and I think our goal is to strengthen the strong areas and strengthen the areas that need it,” Roalson said.
City Councilwoman Alison Alter, who chairs the audit and finance committee, said on Wednesday that staffing problems are common not only in Austin Water, but also in other city departments, including the 911 call center.
Alter said the report says more needs to be done to address the challenges the city and Austin Water are facing through recruitment and retention practices, as well as learning and feedback.
“Top management has a responsibility to look at the echoes and figure out how to address these issues,” Alter said. “Even though there are national problems, this does not mean that we should not do everything in our power and achieve it.”
She said the report provides a roadmap for improvement and highlights the need for systemic change and new thinking so the city can better prepare for major water developments.
In February 2022, Austin Water customers were subjected to a three-day water-boil warning after human error at the Ulrich plant allowed water to enter a system that passed tests for turbidity or turbidity above regulatory limits.
It was the third major boil water alert in years, not counting a separate incident in 2019 where the water was drinkable for some residents but smelled fishy due to the presence of dead zebra mussels. According to the review, the fifth incident in which fire foam entered the distribution system was not related to the operation of any of the plants.
“We have a roadmap on how we can do better,” Alter said. “We can be more prepared and more resilient, but that starts with being transparent and accountable and working to address these systemic issues that pose important challenges to us across the organization. We have a good infrastructure and we need to make sure that we support our people and that there is a good system in place so that we can act quickly.”
