Assistant to the City Manager

The City of Winston-Salem is a regional and economic hub, with a history of community partnerships. The Assistant to the City Manager position will support the City’s efforts to build community engagement, advocate for legislative policy interests, assist with intergovernmental grant proposals and foster intergovernmental relationships including coordination with the Office of Community Assistance.

Reporting to the City Manager (and supporting the Assistant City Managers), this position will oversee issues of strategic importance to the City as defined in the City Strategic Plan and legislative program with a focus on advocacy and engagement.  The successful candidate will oversee constituent services and cultivate regional and local relationships with government, education, healthcare, non-profit and business stakeholders. 

This position will collaborate with other departments in developing and gaining City Council approval for the City’s annual federal, state, and local legislative agenda.  The position will serve as a legislative liaison with federal, state, and local officials, advocate on behalf of the City, assist with the monitoring of legislative initiatives, assist partner organizations such as the National League of Cities, North Carolina League of Municipalities, Metro Mayors, and other professional organizations to advocate on mutual legislative concerns.  This position helps coordinate staff efforts related to applying for and managing grants. This position will work with internal stakeholders to create and implement a new grants management policy.

• Highly responsible professional work in carrying out a wide variety of activities related to organizing, coordinating, and implementing management projects at the direction of the City Manager. 
• Provide research, strategic analysis, and recommendations related to pending legislation, regulation, and intergovernmental priorities to determine their impact on the City. 
• Coordination with community assistance liaisons (Office of Community Assistance) which may include oversight of the Office, incoming resident concerns, requests for information, and requests for assistance.  
• Create work policies and procedures for the community assistance staff including delegating and ensuring workload is equally distributed.
• Draft organizational responses to resident concerns and/or questions relating to government operations; forward inquiries to the appropriate City Department as necessary and ensure follow-up to concerns.
• Articulate the City’s legislative agenda and position on pending legislation to local, state, and federal legislative bodies, community organizations, and local agencies. 
• Monitor legislative activities and informs the City Manager, City Council, Executive Team and Department Directors of major intergovernmental policies and legislative issues affecting the city. Make appropriate recommendations to ensure the City is complying with and is in alignment with rules and regulations at all levels of government.
• Interact with internal and external community stakeholders to understand impacts of potential policy and/or regulatory changes. Represents the city at key community and business events and coordinates and provides visibility and support to intergovernmental visits 
• Project development and oversite for a variety of complex and sensitive assessments of City operations and management research projects.  

Education & Experience
The ideal candidate will have experience in a large, municipal setting with the Council Manager form of government with a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university with major coursework in Public Administration, Public Policy, Business, Communications, Political Science, History, or related field, plus seven (7) years progressively responsible professional experience in Federal, State, or municipal governmental affairs, three (3) years of which were in a supervisory capacity. Master’s degree preferred.  

Physical Requirements
This work is sedentary and requires little to no exertion of force; work regularly requires sitting, using hands to finger, handle or feel and repetitive motions and requires walking and speaking or hearing; work requires close vision; vocal communication is required for expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word and conveying detailed or important instructions to others accurately, loudly or quickly; hearing is required to perceive information at normal spoken word levels and to receive detailed information through oral communications and/or to make fine distinctions in sound; work requires preparing and analyzing written or computer data and visual inspection involving small defects and/or small parts; work is generally in a moderately noisy location (e.g. business office, light traffic).

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