New Redding city manager hopes to bring efficiency expertise to city’s bleak financial state

When William Tarbox applied for Redding’s city manager position last September, he had a very different picture of what the state of the city looked like compared to how he sees it now.

One of his main ideas at the time was to launch a program for unhoused people that allowed the city to more easily identify and formulate services offered for unhoused individuals and increase accessibility for programs that already exist. He said he had experience with a similar approach at a previous job, and it was successful — more unhoused individuals got the resources they needed, and there were less police calls.

But by the time he landed a second interview for the role, the council’s view of the state of the city had shifted after a city-wide sales tax measure the council had hoped would address several budget issues failed to pass. Finances were in poor condition, he was told. He was given a new assignment, asking him to find solutions to the city’s financial problems. 

“The Redding that I applied to in September was a completely different Redding than in my second interview in December,” he said. 

In response, Tarbox said he researched as much as he could, then pitched an idea to the city council: an efficiency study. 

Tarbox told the council that he had successfully contracted firms to conduct efficiency studies in the past with the intention of realigning organizations to increase optimization. He said that pitch was one of the main reasons why the city council hired him. 

Tarbox was selected as Redding’s city manager last December after a months-long recruitment process, and he started his role in February. Just weeks after joining the city, he announced an “assault” style overhaul of city operations, which involved hiring a consulting firm to conduct an efficiency study to cut costs. 

Recently, he sat down for an interview with Shasta Scout to discuss why he was hired, the efficiency study that’s currently in progress and his future plans as city manager.

Efficiency study one way to address city finances, Tarbox says

Earlier in his career, Tarbox said he worked at several major companies, including Dean Foods, which used to be the United States’ largest dairy company. He said the companies he worked at had substantial financial allocations and complexities, and there were high expectations to make profits to sustain the companies. 

Tarbox compared the private companies he worked for to public entities where he’s been employed, which include the city and county of San Francisco and the cities of Benicia and Concord. He said the stress levels and strategies when it came to finances were very similar, but that “government finance is not as complex as private finance for large corporations.” 

“It’s not been a hard transition for me, to be quite frank,” he said about his role in Redding.

In both sectors, Tarbox said he often prioritized efficiency, but that didn’t mean layoffs and closures — it was about “right-sizing” operations instead of downsizing them. 

In Redding, Tarbox explained, city officials made decisions in recent years that were “far less conservative than should have been” in his estimation, and that raises for some city staffers significantly increased budgetary pressures. He added that the city’s personnel and finance departments are currently in “complete distress.”

As an “option for remedy,” Tarbox suggested last month that the city hire Circle 6 Consulting to conduct an efficiency study that would identify areas where the city can cut costs, something the council approved — at a cost of $300,000. Hiring that specific firm was Tarbox’s idea — he said he worked with Circle 6 while employed at the cities of Benicia and Concord, and that he has a good relationship with the firm. 

The new city manager’s intention with the efficiency study is to realign the city’s structure when it comes to employees and workflow. He said the city currently has a lot of employees, including some who may be doing duplicative work, and that he hopes the efficiency study can help figure out where to redistribute employees and how they can each be allocated a proper workload. 

The efficiency study has three phases, and the city is currently in the midst of the first phase, Tarbox said. The process will likely conclude in September or October. He said he doesn’t have any updates about the study yet, but once it’s finished, the results will be reviewed by finance and audit committees, which will then make recommendations for next steps for departmental reorganization and realignment. 

In addition to launching the efficiency study, Tarbox also implemented a hiring freeze soon after he started his role and instructed the city’s department heads to review every expenditure to ensure that there isn’t unnecessary spending. 

Amidst several significant changes at the start of his term, Tarbox said he understands if city employees are fearful about the future of the city and their positions. He said while there will likely be some layoffs, that’s not the goal. Some people may be redistributed to a different department or assigned to handle different tasks, he added. 

Other envisioned improvements to the city

While he didn’t share specifics, Tarbox said some of the initial cost-saving measures he’s implemented have already been successful, and he plans for the city to have substantial cost savings by the end of this fiscal year. 

He also has ideas about how to bring in new revenue, including more freight opportunities through the local railway and regional airport, areas that he sees as some of Redding’s greatest assets. He added that the region has significant natural beauty and hopes that it can be used to draw in more visitors — something the city has been investing in for some time. 

Aside from finances, there are some other aspects of Redding that Tarbox thinks could improve. He brought up the term “human infusion,” which he described as the idea of drawing people from outside Redding to live in the area so that new perspectives can be brought to the city. He said he’s a proponent of the plan for a new medical school, as well as the potential to expand Redding’s colleges, as a way to bring new people here. 

Overall, he said the financial problems of the city are stressful to navigate, and that he wishes he could focus on other things — like an unhoused program — instead of the city’s economics. 

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