Although there has been some resistance, Mayor Diane Delaware said department heads should supply the city council with constructive data and performance management.
During Monday’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting, Delaware said she plans to add it to the council’s next agenda to clear up any confusion surrounding what she expects from city department heads.
Delaware said she wants every department head to provide proper data and the status of any project at the last city council meeting of each month.
“Recently I have had some discussions with some department heads who believe it’s insulting to ask them to give performance data, to write down notes and to report on the actions they have been doing,” Delaware said.
But Delaware said she is only asking department heads to operate with “standard business procedures.”
“How will we ever know if actions took place if it is not statused,” she asked the city board. “I am ashamed to have to sit here and talk about this at this board meeting. But it has been suggested to me that if we want actions statused, I need to get board approval for these actions to get statused.”
Delaware said she would put the concept in a proper motion during the next city council meeting that all department heads must provide project updates and data, either verbally or in writing.
Delaware said some department heads even refused to take notes during meetings.
“The very idea that we don’t want to take notes, that we can remember everything in our heads... that is not happening in Yazoo City,” she said.
