FeedsSantomauro gets dual role
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John Santomauro has moved into his new office in the administration building, but he’ll still be at the police station on occasion.Meet the new executive director in Canton Township.
If he looks a lot like the former public safety director, that’s because they are one in the same.
John Santomauro received his new job title and additional responsibilities at the Aug. 22 meeting of the township board of trustees.
Technically speaking, Santomauro is now the executive director for public safety and operations, a lengthy moniker that suggests the tasks he’s taking on—and retaining. When the township board agreed in April to reorganize some departments, they agreed to create a new position for Santomauro, in which he would absorb many human resource duties from Dan Durack, director of the administrative and community services department. Durack is expected to retire later this year.
“If Dan were not leaving and the department were not to be sort of disassembled, we wouldn’t even be talking about this,” said Supervisor Tom Yack.
Santomauro now spends most of his time in his new office, just a few steps from the supervisor’s. He stresses that his position is not a political one, however.
“The political aspect of what occurs needs to be really divorced from the operational aspect,” he said. “The focus of this position is to deal with numerous development and training issues within the organization.”
Santomauro plans to implement unified policies and procedures for staff development. In the next month, he’ll be meeting with department directors to discuss problem solving, needs of their departments and set long-term goals.
“Each department has had their individual success stories, not just public safety. If you blend the best of all those ideas…hopefully the organization flourishes from it,” he said.
As public safety director, Santomauro liked to talk about the “organizational culture” of the police and fire departments. He said it’s been part of their success and he plans to implement that employee mindset across township staff.
“What we’re basically going to do is mirror some of those successes over there,” he said.
To that end, he’s making clear his “rules of engagement”—tenets of communication he’s culled from a 25-year career in organizational leadership. One such bullet point: “When it’s over, it’s over—no grudges.”
Face to face communication is key in disputes, he noted.
“You can’t fix disagreements through e-mails or phone conversations. It just doesn’t work.”
The job brings more responsibilities, but it does not increase Santomauro’s salary. The township board did, however, vote to provide an incentive for Santomauro to remain with Canton for the next five years.
The township will purchase an extra year of service time in the Municipal Employees Retirement System (MERS) for each of the next five years Santomauro works with Canton.
“We’d like to retain John,” said Yack.
Years of service is one of three measures in a MERS formula that determines pension. So, when Santomauro retires, his pension will be calculated as if he worked those additional years.
Township officials expect one of the two deputy police chiefs to retire late next year. At that time, they would reorganize the public safety department and hire a police chief. Santomauro will mentor the new hire, who will eventually become the new public safety director in 2008, while Santomauro fully transitions to the executive director job.
Until then, he will focus on township-wide strategies and goals. A few planned for the coming year: re-organize the police department command structure, develop a “comprehensive citizen complaint process,” and come up with a way to address internal organizational matters.
Santomauro said it’s not a one-man job.
“The reality is, any time that you’re doing an organizational enhancement, it’s never (one) person that does it,” he said. “The organization has to buy into it.”
From his point of view, it would be a waste of time barking commands from his third-floor office.
“Direction only works in a time of crisis, and we are not in a crisis.”
