A Conversation with Town Manager Garry Brumback

Southington Town Manager
Garry Brumback

As published in the Southington Citizen

The following is the first of a series of conversations between E. Richard Fortunato and Town Manager Garry Brumback in which Brumback responds to questions concerning the status of certain priority challenges he had identified in an interview a year ago, a few months after his arrival in Southington.  The intent is to provide readers a close-up, personal perspective of the ideas, style and approach of the town manager to some fairly complex issues of significant importance to the Town of Southington.

Fortunato:  An initial priority issue was the need to upgrade technology for communications between town departments and ultimately the development of online access to town services by citizens.  An allocation of about $75,000 was a first step in that process. Would you bring us up to date on that?”

Brumback: When we began talking about that I had a goal for putting many town services on the internet.  Early on in the process, we found, unfortunately, that our entire technology infrastructure was archaic and unable, without major changes, to do much more than was already being done. So, we took a step back in expanding our ability to provide service through the internet until we had a base technology structure in place.  In the last year, with the support of the Town Council and the Board of Finance we invested well over a half million dollars completely re-doing the infrastructure, taking it from the technology of the 1990’s to a 2012 based-technology.  We’ve established a platform from which we can create a virtual town hall within the next couple of years.  It’s important that I differentiate between providing internet access to our citizens and still have them feel welcome coming to town hall. There’s no intent, whatsoever, to deprive people of an opportunity to come to their town hall to conduct business, but as our community evolves we see folks rapidly embracing newer technology.  We see people of all ages taking advantage of technology in ways that were not conceivable ten years ago.

As a government responsive to the needs of all, we’re trying to mix the two. We’re always going to be a brick and mortar government, a place where folks who want to can always do business, personally if they wish. At the same time, there’s a growing portion of our population that prefers to do business on line and they want to do it at the time they want to do it and not necessarily at the time we’re available. Technology links with good communications so we will create lists of easily accessible information for people who want to know what is going on in town hall, in the planning or building department and in the area of economic development area. They’ll be able to go to the town website to access virtually unlimited information right from home. We’ll also develop email lists to broadcast information with the punch of a button so that people don’t have to wait until they see it in the newspapers.

Fortunato: How about communications between departments?  I remember that as one of your goals as a means of enhancing effective management of daily operations.

Brumback:  Communications have taken a significant and positive turn. When I arrived here, we were no different from the fairly classic style of town government where departments are fairly insulated and narrowly focused.  Employees come to work every day expecting to do their own piece of the services of the town government.  One of my first goals was to break down those department barriers, causing them to communicate both with one another as well as vertically and horizontally throughout the organization to experience the synergy of multiple people attacking tasks and problems from various perspectives. We’ve come a long way in doing that ... the Police and Fire Departments are at the table as are the senior services center and the Library. They are participants in meetings with other departments, at a minimum of once a month, discussing issues that we’re all confronting.  It is now routine for departments who have challenges to pick up the phone or send an email to all departments seeking assistance across all department lines.  That’s a fairly new phenomenon here.

Fortunato:  Specifically how have these changes benefited the town? 

Brumback: We have developed many more web pages with new information going on the web almost instantly, in great part to the Town Clerk's amazing job of facilitating that while also getting information on our cable news (local access) channel.  Email across departmental lines is now routine and people recognize that we are all one organization with diverse skill sets, who, working as a team, are more effective.  This is happening in all levels of communication. 

Fortunato:  Given the common tendency to resist change, how do you feel you were able to bring it about?

Brumback: By demonstrating that there is value in working as a team and by encouraging folks to reach outside of their immediate environs to solve problems. There’s a greater willingness to work with others because there is no risk associated with it.  It’s not uncommon for some to feel that if I share myself with others there might be some threat to me, a diminishing of my authority. But, in practice, they discover that there is power in teamwork.  This phenomenon exists in all areas of life, not just in government. But when a significant culture shift takes place not only is the organization more successful but there is a sharing of pride in the success.

Futured editions of this series will explore the progress in several other areas of challange as we continue our conversations with the town manager, including the town infrastructure, roads, sewers and facilities and updates on the North Center School and other projects.   Stay tuned!