City of Tampa

This position is responsible for educating the public, the news media, and other stakeholders about their department’s activities, initiatives, and priorities.  Appointed position; employee serves at the pleasure of the Mayor.

An employee in this class, under general supervision in his or her department and working closely with Marketing & Communications Department, plans, coordinates, a comprehensive communications strategy to educate and public and City of Tampa employees about that department’s work. This employee will keep abreast of activities in their department and proactively seeks opportunities to communicate about them directly to the public or through the news media. The employee will respond to media inquiries, write news releases, organize events, generate social media content, and communicate internally. Work is of average difficulty and requires the exercise initiative and independent judgment in determining what, when and how to communicate to best serve the needs of the department/division/City. Tact, discretion, and courtesy are extremely important in discharging assigned duties. Work involves liaison and coordination with department, division, other city personnel, news media and the general public. Work is reviewed through conferences, observations, reports submitted, and results obtained. This is an unclassified position.

Responds to requests from news reporters, and from the general public, often online; provides responses to questions and complaints from the public concerning departmental/divisional operations and facilities. Manages and responds to all inquiries directed to general information email accounts. Serves as the department’s Public Relations Liaison and utilizes GovQA to respond to public records requests.

Initiate press outreach per citywide communications plan/expectations to increase positive messaging on a more routine basis. This includes regular staff spotlights, department facts, and notification of upcoming events.

Support and initiate visibility for department activities and major projects; lead messaging for projects prioritizing the benefit to the public. 

Plans and organizes news conferences, writes press releases, assists other employees with news interviews, public presentations, and other communications opportunities.

Coordinates requests for department/division personnel for participation in public events; provides department/division employees to schools, science fairs, etc. 

Provides educational materials and opportunities on request; maintains library of relevant materials; makes brochures and handouts related to the department/division available for dissemination to interested parties.

Ensures communication plan is executed properly; prepares and distributes department newsletter; provides continuous improvement program updates; provides informational video announcements; provides communications to external stakeholders. 

Primary point of contact and liaison to the Communications Director; ensures established departmental compliance with established communications policies, procedure and directives. 

Generates, edits, publishes and shares content (original text, images, video or HTML) to all applicable social media outlets. 

Maintains department website; review websites for content accuracy and navigation improvements. 

Provides the following services to the department/division: brand identity and graphics development; strategy to achieve their goals through print and digital media; image/photo enhancement and/or manipulation; design and execution of creative, high-quality, print-ready publications. 

Maintains and organizes archive of photos and videos related to the department, its staff, and its events, including staff headshots.

Assists in planning, facilitating, and executing public outreach activities including neighborhood and community feedback sessions as needed. 

Promotes internal events, including training and team-building opportunities, to encourage employee participation and demonstrate department involvement to the public.

Attends meetings involving event planning and coordinates with event organizers to promote event and groups to the public.

Tracks City Council requests and initiatives and provide greater visibility and affirmative positive coverage of progress. 

Guide the publication and release of reports, including community outreach as needed. 

Provide support for all public engagement and outreach as needed.

Performs related work as required.

Advanced knowledge of: effective writing and communication skills; familiarity all types of media.

Intermediate knowledge of: department programs and portfolio; methods, principles, and practices utilized in graphic design. 

Advanced ability to: professionally represent the department/division and the city; exercise independent judgment in determining what, when, and how to effect communications; communicate effectively to a wide variety of stakeholders.

Intermediate ability to: utilize written and oral communications in an effective manner; deal with the public in an effective manner.

Advanced skill in: organization of communications and public relations materials and programs; use of computers (Access, Word, Excel, PowerPoint); the programs utilized in graphic design and video production including Adobe Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, and Premiere Pro CC; interpersonal relations; writing and summarizing complex materials for publication. 

Intermediate Skill in: scheduling, photography

Mostly sedentary, indoors, requires extended use of computer, typing and viewing a monitor.

Graduation from an accredited college or university with a bachelor’s degree in public relations, advertising, journalism, or a related field and 1 year of experience as the primary communications person with responsibility for external communications to include media interaction.

Possession of a valid drivers’ license required.

Evaluation of education and experience. Drug testing is included in all pre-employment processing.

Employees may be required to work rotating shifts, including nights, weekends, holidays and overtime as needed. During periods when the Mayor issues an emergency declaration for the City of Tampa, all employees may be required to work in preparation, response or recovery activities related to the stated emergency.