PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The city is looking to add another leadership position to the public works department.

The Personnel Review Board on Monday supported the creation of a deputy commissioner in the Department of Public Services and Utilities. The full-time position, if approved by the City Council, will have a Grade M-8 pay scale with a yearly salary ranging from $89,247 to $116,021.

This position would assist Commissioner of Public Services and Utilities Ricardo Morales.

"If we think back over my 16 years of being a city councilor, at one point in time, we had a commissioner of public services and a commissioner of public utilities. In some prior administration, we merged those two commissioners together with just one commissioner," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"I think if you pulled any member of the City Council, they would tell you that the workload for both commissioners to pull it into one has not really set up our commissioners to be able to be successful with everything that they need to be dealing with on both public services and public utilities as well as keeping up to date with the day to day operations."

Marchetti engaged with a former commissioner shortly after taking office in January and asked for him to offer suggestions about how the department could be run more efficiently.

One of his first questions was "One commissioner or two?"

"As a former commissioner, he quickly answered 'one' but he wanted to do his analysis and review of the department before it came forward. When he was done with his analysis, his report showed that he would stay with one commissioner but highly recommended the position of deputy commissioner. And so the deputy commissioner would report directly to the commissioner and handle much of the day-to-day operations and doing the field work and being on the ground with the staff," the mayor explained.