Title
Authorizing the Committee on Law and Government to hold hearings on succession planning for appointed officers in the City of Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, The Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, Article III, Chapter 1 states that the executive and administrative work of the City of Philadelphia is performed by 12 elected or appointed officers, 17 City Departments, and the Mayor’s Cabinet, among others. Together, the individuals holding the above-identified positions administer a City government comprised of thousands of workers managing billions of dollars to serve the City’s 1.6 million residents; and
WHEREAS, Effective succession planning for each of the City’s appointed officers is critical to ensure that key offices and departments in the City are positioned to make progress despite the inevitable transition of leadership that occurs within all organizations; and
WHEREAS, Actions taken by City Treasurer Rasheia Johnson and her team demonstrate the need for the City of Philadelphia to prioritize effective succession planning. In 2016, Treasurer Johnson identified several years of unreconciled City accounts during the first year of her tenure in that office. After review of her findings, the Administration developed an action plan to reconcile several City bank accounts, many of which had been unreconciled since 2010. Valuable time and resources could have been saved through a process and culture that facilitated clear communication of unresolved matters during the transition of senior level political and administration leadership; and
WHEREAS, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney announced the formation of a Reconciliation Task Force to oversee long term processes for the reconciliation of City cash accounts on June 19, 2018. The Task Force, co-chaired by Treasurer Johnson and former City Controller Jonathan Saidel, will work with stakeholders on a biweekly basis to ensure that reconciliations proceed on a timely basis in the future regardless of leadership changes; and
WHEREAS, According to a report by McKinsey and Company entitled “Planning for the Next Generation”, effective public sector institutions must put in place strategic processes for succession planning that hold regular succession-planning meetings, plan for all critical roles within the organization and clearly define requirements. Emphasizing best practices around transition meetings, McKinsey and Company noted that, “several large European transit agencies hold week-long succession-planning sessions three times a year”; and
WHEREAS, Governing indicates that a critical issue with succession planning in large public organizations is the replacement of “a sole incumbent who handles a breadth of responsibilities or possesses extensive specialized knowledge.” It further states that effective succession planning must go “beyond simply replacing positions that become vacant” and become “an ongoing process of identifying, assessing and developing talent to ensure leadership, management and supervisory continuity throughout an organization”; and
WHEREAS, The Obama Administration in 2016 sought to modernize the federal transition and succession planning processes by making the following improvements: launching the formal transition planning earlier; streamlining transition materials; developing an architecture for a digital transition; developing new onboarding systems; and engaging agencies not traditionally included in the formal transition planning process. President Obama also appointed the nation’s first Federal Transition Coordinator to centralize transition planning across agencies; now therefore, be, it
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That we hereby authorize the Committee on Law and Government to hold hearings on succession planning for appointed officers and department heads in the City of Philadelphia.
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Blondell Reynolds Brown
Councilwoman At-Large
June 21, 2018