Watershed Protection District Permit Process Evaluation
Ventura County, with a population of 823,000, is located on the southwest coast of California bordered by Santa Barbara County, Kern County and Los Angeles County. The total area exceeds 2,208 square miles; of which 362 are water. The Watershed Protection District was formed in 1944 and provides protection of life, property, watercourses, watersheds and infrastructure from flood and stormwater damages and dangers.
LAC has previously assisted the District to implement a computerized maintenance management system, enhance business processes, and empower crews to better manage their work. The District recently performed and evaluation of the Stormwater Principal Permittee Program which the District oversees for 10 local cities and the County. Currently, the District is performing an evaluation of the Watershed Permitting process. The District is also preparing to integrate the computerized system in Operations & Maintenance with the system in Transportation to allow better sharing of data and coordination of resources. This process will include a management evaluation of both O&M and Transportation with an analysis of existing capabilities to determine how to best meet the needs identified in the evaluation. Several management functions are reviewed including:
General – System and department opportunities.
Planning – Ideas related to work plans, activity accomplishment, work methods, levels of service, performance measures, activity based costing and budgeting.
Organizing – Determination of labor, contract and equipment resources required to perform needed work, meeting quality expectations.
Directing – Processes to assign, schedule, outline, prioritize and identify work.
Controlling/Improving – Efforts to perform, track, compare and improve work operations.
The goal of this effort are the positive impacts that will result from the effectiveness of public dollars expended, efficiency of work performed and a positive attitude by the involvement of all staff in an approach to work being done.