Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced Wednesday that he is revamping the departments and cabinets of the City of Boston by reducing cabinet positions and promoting collaboration.
“Our role as a government is to improve people’s lives, and the purpose of this reorganization is to better deliver services to the people of Boston,” Walsh said in a Wednesday release. “As a new administration serving a rapidly changing city, we’ve had an opportunity to take a good hard look at what worked, what could work better, and make changes to become more efficient and improve outcomes for the people we serve.”
The new organization sorts the departments into 12 cabinets: Arts and Culture; Chief of Staff; Economic Development, Education; Environment; Energy and Open Space; Finance and Budget; Health and Human Services; Housing and Neighborhood Development; Information and Technology; Operations and Administration; Public Safety; Streets; and Transportation and Sanitation.
With this reorganization comes the consolidation of the Advocacy and Strategic Investment and Public Property departments.
These changes are intended to make the workings of the city government more efficient and productive.
“The cabinet of Streets, Transportation and Sanitation, for example, will better align operations of the Department of Public Works, the Boston Transportation Department and Boston Water and Sewer, departments that frequently work together in different capacities,” said the release.
In order to put economic growth as one of the most important issues in the city, Walsh created the cabinet Economic Development. This cabinet will include any departments that contribute to the advancement of Boston’s economy.
“Mayor Walsh has consistently emphasized the need for increased transparency and accessibility for all Bostonians — especially women — and minority-owned businesses, and local businesses — to share in and benefit from the economic boom in Boston,” said the release.
Walsh also added an entirely new cabinet, Arts and Culture, in order to make sure that the Boston arts community receives proper funding. However, it will also be working with other departments in any and all creative, economic, and tourism projects.
Walsh began working on this reorganization nearly immediately after he got elected, while he was still transitioning into the mayoral office. He sought advice from the transition committee and Boston residents and businesses in order to make the new structure as productive as possible, according to the release. These changes will be put in effect in the near future, there may be additional consolidations or changes and it may affect the city’s budget.
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