In writing a new chapter in Boston’s municipal history, Mayor Marty Walsh has opted to forego predecessor Tom Menino’s cabinet organization and restructure it to fit his administration’s theme of transparency, efficiency and collaboration. Under Mayor Walsh’s fresh regime there will be 12 cabinet level positions that report directly to the mayor and a leadership team that will work in tandem with him.
“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,” Mayor Walsh said in a statement. “As a new administration serving a 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.”
As you can see in the composition above and in comparison to Menino’s cabinets of years past, Advocacy & Strategic Investment and Public Property have been consolidated into a single unit. Departments previously under these cabinets have subsequently been realigned within the latest hierarchy.
The 12 cabinet level positions will be as follows:
Arts & Culture; Chief of Staff; Economic Development; Education; Environment, Energy & Open Space; Finance & Budget; Health & Human Services; Housing & Neighborhood Development; Information & Technology; Operations & Administration; Public Safety; and Streets, Transportation & Sanitation.
It’s interesting to note that the Chief of Health & Human Services, Felix Arroyo, will preside over the most subservient positions, therefore affording him more responsibility and influence. Arroyo, of course, joined Mayor Walsh’s campaign when his own bid was lost to the mayor and fellow contender John Connolly. A staunch supporter and grassroots organizer, Arroyo was later appointed as Chief.
According to Mayor Walsh’s press office, “Many of the changes to the cabinet are intended to streamline services and improve collaboration among departments with common goals.”
For example, the Boston Redevelopment Authority will report to both the Chief of Economic Development as well as Chief of Housing, as noted in the graph above.
Conceiving a cabinet position for arts and culture is sure to please the more creative-minded, proving the Mayor’s intent to stress arts and culture on par with other constituent services while fulfilling his campaign promise to do just that.
In keeping with transparency, the Mayor’s office notes that the idea of this pecking order was designed based on the feedback of the Mayor’s multiple transitional town hall meetings, during which he received substantial feedback from Bostonians on the ground level and adhered to their imminent needs.
