It's Our Team: CITY OF THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA.

• Author: Ludwig, Katie
• Position: FINANCE

Early in his career with the City of Thousand Oaks, California, Senior Financial Analyst Ryan Roman, who works in the Finance Department, asked Deputy Public Works Director Nader Heydari if his team could help with a project. Nader quickly responded, "It's not your department and my department. It's our team. It's the city."

These words had a significant impact on Ryan as a new employee, and they exemplify the collaborative culture that Thousand Oaks staff consider to be one of the keys to their success.

"We don't use the word 'can't' very often. It's 'how,'" said Cliff Finley, director of the Public Works Department. "We work together because we're trying to solve problems. We discuss what we're trying to accomplish and why we're trying to do it. If we all agree that the intended results make sense, we discuss how to accomplish the task. Every staff member, regardless of their role in our departments, feels like they need to figure out how to accomplish their work more efficiently. That's how an organization empowers its staff and becomes more efficient."

Jaime Boscarino is the city's finance director. "Our biggest customer is Public Works because they spend the most money at the city. We work with them a lot throughout the year--with all the department heads, really--as things pop up that they hadn't accounted for in the budget, or as laws change, as we have additional proj ects that we need to add to the budget," she said. "They're working with Finance throughout the year to identify funding sources and to figure out if we have capacity to do certain things. We lead the budget for the whole city, but it truly is a team effort."

"We spend a lot of money, so we work very, very closely with the Finance Department to be able to execute our work," added Cliff. "It's a great relationship. They do a great job of helping us get work done," he said.

Cliff explained that when he first arrived at the city in 2012, the working relationship between Public Works and Finance wasn't as close. "The Public Works Department had its own purchasing group. We took care of all our own facilities and IT. We didn't get--and didn't want--any help with the budget. We were oftentimes at odds with the Finance Department," he said.

Cliff's experience of working for another local government had shown him the value of having a close working relationship with the Finance Department. He worked on convincing his colleagues in Public Works that Finance should be their "best friend" and he, with the support of the departmental directors at the time, cultivated relationships with his colleagues in the Finance Department.

"Jaime and I were both deputies at that time," Cliff said. "We worked hard to develop a relationship, and all of those barriers just started...