Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced the beginning of the "First Deputy Exchange," a three-week management exercise in which the first deputy commissioner of every City agency has been assigned to a different agency for three weeks. The goal of the exchange is to improve inter-agency knowledge, understanding, and communication; foster new ideas for collaboration; and improve the services delivered to New Yorkers. Each first deputy commissioner will report back after the three-week relocation with observations and recommendations. The program, which was introduced during the Mayor's inaugural address and began today, is modeled after an exercise the Mayor first employed at his company.

"Tight budgets can not be an excuse for accepting the status quo," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Doing more with less means finding new ways to make government more productive, effective, and efficient - and a key way to do that is to bring a new set of eyes to each agency. Innovative management is more important now than ever."

The deputies have been asked to focus on customer service, staff communication, interagency collaboration, and innovation. In addition, each assignment was made with a specific programmatic or operational goal in mind. For example, the first deputy commissioners from the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development have traded places to strengthen efforts to prevent foreclosure. The deputy from the Department of Small Business Services is assigned to the Human Resources Administration to identify additional strategies to increase job placements for welfare recipients. The deputy from the Department of Education is assigned to the Parks Department to explore additional strategies to enhance recreational opportunities for public school students and combat child obesity. The deputy from the Parks Department is assigned to the Department of Environmental Protection to strengthen collaboration on PlaNYC initiatives, including innovative open space design strategies that support stormwater management work.

The agency assignments are as follows:

The agencies marked with an asterisk (*): FDNY, NYPD, OEM, OLR, and OMB are participating in a second phase of the exercise that begins on February 1.