Title
Resolution to Approve Adding 1.0 Full Time Equivalent Position to the Sustainable Energy Utility (A2SEU) (8 Votes Required)
Memorandum
Background: Ann Arbor voters overwhelmingly supported the creation of the Ann Arbor Sustainable Energy Utility (A2SEU) in November 2024. City Council created the A2SEU as a department of the City via ordinance in 2025. The A2SEU's first (and currently only) FTE, Executive Director Shoshannah Lenski, was hired in August 2025, with the understanding that the City was prepared to invest in adding two additional staff positions in the near-term to support the A2SEU. In the last six months, the A2SEU has made steady progress toward a pilot launch of services in fall 2026 and a larger-scale city-wide deployment in 2027. However, the work involved in starting a brand new utility is immense, and additional staff capacity is essential to ensuring that deployment plans remain on track.
The A2SEU is seeking to add one FTE at this time. The proposed operations manager role will have responsibility for developing and overseeing the A2SEU's operations at launch and beyond, including first-year responsibilities to: lead the business-operations side of the A2SEU IT system implementations, in coordination with IT; establish asset performance metrics, monitoring, and dashboards; develop an equipment/inventory management approach including warehousing operations; create and maintain living A2SEU operations procedure manual and support continuous improvement.
Budget/Fiscal Impact: Grant funding from the State of Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity Resolution R-25-374 will cover the position costs through October 2026, and the U.S. Department of Energy geothermal grant Resolution R-25-380 is anticipated to cover approximately 50% of the position costs between November 2026 to November 2028. Remaining costs are to be covered in the A2SEU FY2027 (and beyond) budget which is being prepared for Council through the regular annual...
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