Covington city employees have a little more breathing room now.
In late August, the Public Works Department moved into a second floor suite at Covington City Hall, which is a leased space in a building that is also home to a handful of businesses.
Public Works director Glenn Akramoff and his staff happily offered to move to the space upstairs, which started a shuffle that allowed other departments to reorganize and expand.
“We were crammed in here tight,” Akramoff said. “We weren’t making the most effective use of our space.”
And then new positions funded by the city’s utility tax that kicked in seven months ago started working in City Hall — a new parks and recreation director and a new economic development manager, for example — which further highlighted the need for more space,.
“We didn’t really have a place for them,” Akramoff said. “And our contract city attorney didn’t have any place to work here, either.”
So, an in-house staff committee was formed. “We looked at off-site options,” Akramoff said. “We looked at rearranging just downstairs to see if we could do it. We looked at these two spaces (on the second floor) in particular. We looked at partnering with the (Covington Chamber of Commerce), which is just downstairs.”
After some discussion, the committee decided on three options, then presented it at an all-staff meeting.
“We ended up narrowing it down to this being the best space,” Akramoff said. “Our main focus became efficiency and putting departments together.”
Departments like Community Development were spread out, which made it a little bit harder to get work done, according to city officials. And with the city growing, it was important to help the department that handles planning and permitting, among other things, work as efficiently as possible.
“One of the problems we were having, and I think that’s one of the reasons we put finance in their space, is that a lot of the time more people are coming to see us than finance,” Akramoff said. “So, you had a lot of people coming in and out of there, and it was a secure door.”
The finance department was moved to the space previously occupied by Public Works, while human resources, the city manager and his administrative assistant, as well as those who interact with the public, didn’t move.
“We wanted to make sure that the people who spent the most time at the front counter talking to people were near it, and that’s the way it’s set up,” Akramoff said.
Akramoff’s staff painted their new space themselves, he said, which helped save the city money. They moved Aug. 21-22. On Sept. 5, the staff was still unpacking and settling in.
City Hall now occupies 15,423 square feet on the first floor of the building and 1,600 square feet on the second floor. There are about 50 employees. There’s still room for future additions of staff.
“We planned this space so that we could expand without costing any more money. We can add staff if we need to,” Akramoff said. “We tried to meet everybody’s needs the best we could, and I think overall we did that.”
Staff writer Kris Hill can be reached at (425) 432-1209 (extension 5054) and khill@reporternewspapers.com
