Daily News Update, Jan. 24, 2008

TWDB makes organizational changes

The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) has undergone a revision of its organizational structure, including redirecting board leaders to more active focus areas and realigning resources to facilitate recent changes to TWDB operations.

TWDB staff are currently engaged in the implementation of a myriad of laws and appropriations to implement new policies for groundwater management, balancing the human and environmental needs for surface water flows, delivery of natural resources information, data dissemination services, delivery of flood protection, financial and technical assistance and the states role in financing of water-related infrastructure.

The challenges that lie ahead for the TWDB required changes within the organization in order to ensure success in meeting the charges the board have been given by the Legislature.

Primarily, there was a need for some of the leaders to be redirected to a narrower but much more active focus on areas of increased workload and policy development. There was also a need to solidify current internal operational services to ensure good customer service through a more traditional alignment of resources.

To ensure that this occurred, TWDB Executive Administrator Kevin Ward directed a realignment of resources that begins at the highest level of leadership in the organization.
The first change to be made was to provide a renewed focus for the water resource science activities of the TWDB to ensure full support of the broad range of new customers and stakeholders envisioned by recent legislative changes.

The recent shift from a planning to an implementation focus for these areas called for a corresponding separation of planning and science activities. Changes made in the79th and 80^th Legislative sessions have added several multi-faceted policy processes as well as staffing challenges for the TWDB to provide new services at the local, regional and state level for environmental flows, water conservation and groundwater management.

In the second organizational change, the TWDB named Carolyn Brittin Deputy over a new area, which combines the Water Resources Planning Division with the Texas Natural Resources Information System (TNRIS), which will ensure the development of a more strategic direction for these services, and a more effective stakeholder process to ensure that policy issues are vetted in the appropriate forums. This new area is titled Regional Water and Flood Planning, and Natural Resources Information System.

A third organizational move was to align the remaining operational information technology functions and the planning publications section under the Operations and Administration Service. Under the leadership of Lisa Glenn, the alignment of Programming and Applications Development, Information Technology, and Planning Publications into a more traditional arrangement with the administrative and operational support of the TWDB will ensure that there is a broad agency focus and improved delivery of information technology services to all internal and external customers.