Glen Ellyn restructuring public works department
Glen Ellyn’s public works department is being restructured in an effort to streamline operations and increase management oversight, village officials said this week.
It also means the elimination of the $65,000-a-year part-time village forester position, since officials say those responsibilities can be spread among existing public works staffers.
The move follows an announcement last week that the village will cut its funding to the Glen Ellyn Economic Development Corporation in an effort to handle more business retention and attraction efforts in-house.
The public works department is reverting back to a more traditional structure of separate divisions for forestry, street and utilities. That arrangement had existed in Glen Ellyn about a decade ago, but staff reductions forced officials to bring all public works divisions under one large heading, Village Manager Mark Franz said.
“Now we’re heading back, though we still don’t have a full compliment of staff from those days,” Franz said. “This is just a way to create some additional management control and improve service delivery.”
The village forester, Peggy Drescher, had been responsible for diagnosing trees for infestation such as the emerald ash borer. If a tree required removal or treatment, a work request was put into an internal village system, and a public works crew was later sent out. Now, two certified arborists already on the public works staff will be on site with maintenance crews, said Julius Hansen, the public works director.
“It’s kind of eliminating a step,” Hansen said.
The village plans to hire an entry level forestry division worker to assist with tree removals as a result of the EAB infestation. The village is contracting out some tree removals for larger sized trees, but medium and small trees can be removed by the four-person in-house forestry staff, Hansen said.
He anticipates that some 200 large trees and at least 100 small trees could be removed from the village parkway in the coming year.
Hansen said the restructuring of the public works department will go into effect next week.