The Goodyear City Council will discuss a proposed Unified Communications Plan during a work session as part of the Fiscal Year 2025 Strategic Plan. While no formal vote will take place during this …
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The Goodyear City Council will discuss a proposed unified communications plan during a work session as part of the Fiscal Year 2025 Strategic Plan.
While no formal vote will take place during this meeting, the discussion will help to shape council’s direction ahead of a Feb. 10 vote on a budget amendment needed to implement the changes.
The plan, presented by Digital Communications Director Tammy Vo, is intended to streamline the city’s public communications by centralizing marketing and communications efforts across multiple departments.
Currently, communications staff in different city departments operate independently, each following their own strategies, purchasing separate resources, and reporting to different supervisors. A recent staff analysis found this decentralized approach has led to inefficiencies, with overlapping responsibilities, inconsistent messaging, and duplicated costs.
City officials have considered three possible approaches: maintaining the current structure, adopting a blended model where departments retain their own staff but follow a unified strategy, or fully centralizing communications under the Digital Communications Department.
Many other midsize to large cities in the region follow a centralized communications model, as do several of Goodyear’s own departments, including Finance, Legal, IT, and Human Resources.
Although the work session will not include a formal vote, any move toward a unified communications structure will require a budget amendment, which the council is scheduled to vote on during its Monday, Feb. 10 meeting.
If approved, the amendment would allow the city to centralize communications funding and shift several existing positions to the Digital Communications Department. Specifically, the city plans to fill an existing staff vacancy with a new full-time communications role and transfer two positions from Parks and Recreation and two from Economic Development to support the new structure.
As Goodyear continues to grow, city officials believe that a more coordinated approach to public communications will improve branding, media relations, social media engagement, and overall efficiency. The discussion will provide council members an opportunity to review the findings, ask questions, and offer input before any decisions are made at the next city council meeting.
Visit goodyearaz.gov for information.
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