Peter Auger, Auburn Hills City Manager
Thoughts on running a city, daily musings, and everything in between.
City Manager, Auburn Hills, MI
Goals and Objectives
Every year our City Council holds an annual Goals and Objectives workshop on a Saturday about this time of year. Why this time of year? Well, we are gearing up for our annual budget process and we feel that if there ever is a good time to lay out a map for our organization, it [...]
Posted in Communication, Finance, Leadership, Planning, Projects
Rainy Days
There are sometimes when you read about governments and rainy day funds. Some wonder is that the same as “slush funds?” No, it is not, and depending on the philosophy of the organization Rainy Day Funds or Reserve Funds are just like a person’s savings account and emergency fund wrapped into one. A case in [...]
Posted in Communication, Finance, Legislative, Planning, Programs, Projects
Those senior citizens have it made
By Karrie Marsh, Executive Assistant and Guest Blogger I don’t want life to fly by, but when I turn 55 years old, I plan on living the good life. Don’t most of us spend alot of time planning for the golden years? We plan on where we want to live, what trips we will take [...]
Money
Funding is an issue no matter what organization you run. One difference in the public sector is we use OPM (Other People’s Money). Some people spend OPM a lot easier than they would their own, we try to be more stingy with OPM than we would our own. It is approaching the Federal Tax Day [...]
Posted in Business, City Council, Finance, Infrastructure, Leadership, Legislative, Planning, Programs, Projects, Service
Camaraderie
By Karrie Marsh, Executive Assistant and Guest Blogger One of the five dimensions of a Great Place to Work is camaraderie. The others are credibility, respect, fairness, and pride. These dimensions are definitely present here at the City of Auburn Hills and throughout our departments. Recently, I had the privilege of meeting weekly with a [...]
Posted in Finance, Leadership, Programs
Love to learn
Truth be told, I have never thought of myself as good at school, and there are probably a couple dozen teachers and a hand full of principals to back up that statement. That doesn’t mean I don’t have an inquiring mind. Saw a cartoon on the internet that had a woman (maybe a teacher or [...]
If only a little more…
Many times in government programs we hang on to things a little too long. There are some in government (probably won’t admit it publically) that actually just start a program small because once started it is easier to ask for more. There are almost too many examples to list where someone claims if it was [...]
Numbers, percentages and list
Some days it seems we look at a lot of data. Look at, absorb, sift through, organize, rank, rate, verify…. It is all part of the process to run a quality organization that adds value. One thing I learned at Oakland University, located right here in Auburn Hills, in Statistics and Advanced Statistics courses is [...]
Posted in Business, Communication, Finance, Leadership, Legislative, Planning, Projects
Why are we involved?
Ah, now this is a good question. It follows the question of what are you going to do about “them”. For those who are totally lost right now, thinking I fell off the soap box I stand on once in awhile and bumped my head. After last week’s bomb shell that the School District of [...]
Posted in Business, Communication, Finance, Leadership, Legislative, Local Events, Programs
“Stupid is as Stupid does”
Who would have ever thought you would read a quote from Forrest Gump on this here blog! Sometimes life is more interesting than the movies. Every once in awhile, life is stranger than in the movies and no one would believe it if it was in a movie. Would you believe this if it was [...]
Posted in Business, Communication, Finance, Programs
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