PORTLAND — People say they want government to change, Glenn Aho told a classroom at University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service on Wednesday night.

“But change causes stress, and stress causes fear, and fear, when you combine it with political influence, can be kind of flammable,” Aho said.

In his case, it led to him losing his job.

“It’s a bit odd to say, but if you are going to be innovative, being let go or fired is kind of a compliment,” Aho said. “It’s not all a bad thing.”

Aho was the featured speaker at the second in the school’s fall lecture series on state and local government. He was invited in September to discuss the management changes he’d championed in his role as Auburn’s city manager, just weeks before he was fired from the position.

Auburn city councilors voted at their Oct. 17 meeting to remove Aho from his post and put him on 90 days paid leave.

Aho decided to continue with his presentation to the Muskie School and spent the last few weeks working and reworking it. Muskie students in the audience were joined by several from Auburn, including City Councilor Mike Farrell, Public Works Director Bob Belz and former City Clerk Roberta Fogg.

Aho took the opportunity to explain his vision for changing local government and why changes were necessary.

Local government today is designed to operate in good financial times, adding services upon demand. Those services cost money, and that leads to a conflict during tough economic times. People want government spending cut, but they’re not willing to part with their services, he said.

“I had one councilor tell me, ‘I was all in favor of cutting the budget, but I didn’t realize I’d have to cut services and people,'” Aho said.

His response was to streamline department management and focus on building teams.

City departments were grouped into three teams: Police and Fire under the Public Safety Team, Finance, IT, Clerk, Human Resources under the Public Administration Team and Planning, Engineering, Parks and Recreation and Public Works under the Public Services Team.

Department heads from each team met weekly to discuss problems, come up with possible solutions and share resources.

The new structure was designed to make city management more nimble, efficient and responsive to residents’ needs.

“I’m gone, but the system is still in place and it seems to work,” Aho said.

But Aho said the rate at which the city adopted the changes scared some people, both employees and elected officials. Some were politically connected, and they pushed back.

He wound up losing his job, but he said it’s important that the changes he started continue. He sees himself as a sort of sacrifice, and that’s fine.

“I went in and made a lot of changes, and hopefully they’ll stay,” Aho said. “But now, it’s going to be OK. Something tragic had to happen for the changes to stay in Auburn.”

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