Huntington, NY - The Town of Huntington has successfully transitioned to the Citizens Advocate Office. The transition has been seamless, with no interruption of communications with all calls during regular working hours answered live. Councilmembers may choose to have their phones go directly to voicemail.
In a broad step toward government efficiency, the Town of Huntington moved to eliminate the two per councilmember staff to create a Citizens Advocate Office. That action will effectively increase Town Council staff from two staff members to four, at the onset, and the potential of eight at full staff.
As the Citizens Advocate positions titles are Civil Service, each existing staff member was offered an opportunity to interview for a position, which each did. They were also given the opportunity to apply for other positions within the Town that they qualified for. Of the eight former staff members, four have accepted positions as Citizens Advocates, two took positions with other departments, one chose to leave the town and another opted to resign, with lifetime medical insurance, given their length of service.
While the Citizens Advocate Office is being renovated, the newly appointed advocacy staff will remain in the Town Council Office to ensure consistent coverage of phones, emails and calendars. In the event all four citizens advocates are busy with other calls, the town has instituted a backup system, forwarding additional calls directly to the Supervisor’s office, where there are two additional citizens advocates.
This innovative move by the Huntington Town Board is designed to eliminate redundancy, making constituency communications more effective and efficient, further ensuring that all callers to the Town will always reach a live person during regular business hours.
