Read an Excerpt

Putting Your Local Government on a $ Diet

AuthorHouse

Chapter One

Why Go on a $ Diet?

Given the diffusion of power and the need for elected officials to portray a positive panorama of government services, why go on a $ diet?

Whether on a personal or government level, dieting entails self-discipline. There are no quick fixes. Diets are prone to fads: "Don't eat this, but eat whatever else you want, and you will lose a lot of weight fast." Most of us, especially those who have tried these "miracle" programs, know that drastic short-term diets rarely result in permanent weight loss. In many cases, more weight is quickly gained back than was initially lost.

Effective dieting involves modifying behaviors on a long-term basis. One must not only reduce the total intake of food and drink but substantially curtail ingestion of some high calorie favorites.

So why bother dieting? Certain individuals want to look fit and find the sacrifice well worth it. Others embark on a change of habit because of a health crisis.

In government, "looking good" often involves providing ever more services to constituents in general and interest groups in particular. That is certainly not a recipe for going on a $ diet. It is just the opposite.

However, embarking on the quest of a leaner government may reduce or eliminate the need for tax increases. The residents benefit but so too will the elected officials.

The other reason for a diet is a financial crisis that results in an inability of the governmental jurisdiction to do business as usual.

Many Cooks

In private industry, the vast majority of chief executive officers, CEOs, have gradually moved up through the corporate ranks over the course of a career in management. The CEO of the majority of local governments is an elected mayor or county executive. The CEO may or may not have experience in managing a large and complex organization.

Boards of directors of private corporations generally do not delve into the details of managing the organization. This is certainly not true of city councils, county boards of supervisors and other legislative bodies whose members often wish to probe the minutest particles of service management at the behest of constituent or lobbying groups whom they depend upon for votes and resources to keep them in office.

Notwithstanding the Jeffersonian notion that elected public service should be a patriotic duty of limited duration, most public officials have adopted elective office as a career that they hope will lead to a succession of higher positions.

The corporate CEO hires top management. In government, these officials may be appointed by the chief elected official, the professional chief administrator, the majority of the governing board or by election. The primary criterion for selection may be expertise or it may be political party affiliation or assistance in getting the hiring official reelected.

The employment of these top managers is based in large measure upon the continued office holding of whoever hired them. All too often, their actual performance is secondary in importance to loyalty to their boss or political affiliation.

Lower levels of management are usually dependent on appointees for the furtherance of their careers. They react to orders to accomplish short-term objectives. Planning for long-term improvements is generally put on the "back burner" since it does not pay in terms of present or future status.

Employees and supervisors understand the system as being driven by short-term assignments. Suggestions for improvement are often met with a lukewarm reception, or worse: "It's none of your business." So it is understandable that many employees adopt the credo: "Don't rock the boat." They become loathe to expand their purview: "It's not in my job description."

Legislation also contributes to a diffusion of power. For instance, many state and local governments provide by law that certain groups of public employees who have the right to bargain wages, benefits and working conditions with their government employer may, after an impasse has been reached, opt to lay their case before an arbitrator who will decide the terms of the contractual agreement.

So who is in charge? Is it the chief elected official, the legislature, appointed officials, those whom we refer to derisively as "bureaucrats," powerful constituencies, profligate lobbyists, the voting public or specialized consultants such as arbitrators or urban planners?

Like it or not, in our complex and competitive democracy, each has a "piece of the action."

Getting Started

There is no better time to start the diet than before the onset of a financial crisis. The later steps are taken, the less weight will be lost for good. By the midst of a "meltdown," it is too late. The quick "fix" is in. There is no time to trend down on a permanent basis. "Off with their heads!" Layoffs will certainly result in sudden weight loss.

The imperative is to have the resolve to change the myriad ways work is accomplished, little by little, over a long period of time. The incremental changes that are so controversial as they are implemented will become institutionalized as part of the organizational fabric which itself becomes difficult to alter.

In the labyrinth of diffusion of power, responsibility and authority in government, who must have the fortitude and exhibit the leadership to commence the process?

Many local governments have an elected executive with extensive powers to make operational policy decisions. This is the strong mayor or county executive form of government. In some jurisdictions, the executive power may reside in an appointed position of city manager or county administrator. In yet others, a large measure of operational policymaking is placed in a city council or county board of legislators.

Regardless of the structure of the executive, the elected members of the board always possess the legislative authority to make major policy decisions embodied in law, ordinance or resolution.

The plea to reduce may surface from an elected official, a taxpayers group or a chamber of commerce, to name a few possibilities, but it is the person in the highest elected office who must take the lead in putting the local government on a $ diet.

Defining the Measures

A private firm may produce many products, but it has only one "bottom line," profit.

A government provides many services, and it has many "bottom lines," one for how well each service is provided. Effectiveness refers to the quality of a service.

Indicators of service delivery abound. Some are easy to measure: average response time to a fire or medical emergency, major crime "solve" rates and number of street miles paved. Others are more difficult to assess: social services to children, fire prevention inspection programs and police lectures to students on the dangers of drug abuse.

Under these circumstances, we tend to bundle our perception of services provided by a particular government. "The village of __________ is a high service community." "The so-called services of ___________ are the worst." These views may not be totally accurate, but they often pretty well sum up the effectiveness of a local government's services.

The reverse of the effectiveness side of the coin is efficiency which, simply stated, is the output per level of input.

A simple measure of efficiency exists in refuse collection. Let us assume 10 tons of trash are collected per sanitation worker per work day. The number of routes or workers are diminished to the point that 11 tons of trash are collected per sanitation worker per work day. The efficiency gain is 1 over 10 or an increase of 10%. Efficiency can also be increased by the use of better equipment.

However, what happens to the effectiveness of sanitation collection when efficiency increases? Is the degree of cleanliness the same in areas surrounding emptied refuse receptacles? If the answer is negative, there is a situation where efficiency has increased but effectiveness has decreased.

Productivity, as applied to public services, is a combination of efficiency and effectiveness. Obviously, when efficiency increases, effectiveness often decreases and vice versa.

Increasing either of the components, without decreasing the other, results in an increase in productivity. One component can rise significantly while the other declines marginally. This also increases productivity. There are even occasions where both efficiency and effectiveness increase as a result of a change.

The primary focus of Putting Your Local Government on a $ Diet will be efficiency since that is where money is saved. However, I will also cite examples of increases in efficiency where gains in effectiveness take place.

Several situations that I will review are based upon improvements I authored and implemented in my capacity as HR Director and labor negotiator for the City of New Rochelle, NY.

The System

Civil Service

Lincoln was dogged by individuals seeking government employment throughout the Civil War. The push for reform of government employment practices had been a subject of discussion for years, but the assassination of President James Garfield by a disappointed office seeker in 1881 finally resulted in action.

The Pendleton Act of 1883 created the US civil service system. That same year, New York was the first state in the union to establish such a system. Soon after, many states followed suit. Several other states left this up to local governments.

The professed goal of civil service was to establish a program where employment and promotion would be based upon merit as measured by examination.

Over the years, many civil service systems have become more rigid. Court and civil service commission decisions have resulted in a labyrinth of detail. The result is that civil service is often perceived by public managers and the general public as an obstacle to efficient government.

However, in the absence of an alternative, civil service still provides a system to prevent the widespread appointment of politically connected but not the best qualified employees.

The Budgeting Process

Another target of the late 19th century government reform movement was the lack of an organized way to account for government funds. The solution, as the reformers saw it, was to apply the methods of the rising profession of accounting to all public sector revenues and expenditures.

This served as the basis for the new budgeting system. At the apex, there are funds that categorize the types of revenues and expenditures. The largest of these is the general fund that encompasses the basic services of a government.

Through the mid 20th century, the property tax provided the preponderant source of revenue to the general funds of local government. Since then, sales taxes have increased as a part of the revenue stream. Local governments often receive resources from the state in terms of general revenue sharing or specific grants. The federal government provides resources to local governments for a wide array of programs. User charges, ranging from fees for building inspection permits to park entries, also contribute to the general fund.

The general fund is broken down into a chart of accounts that lists the departments of the government: police, fire, public health, recreation and parks, the mayor's office and so on. Within each department, the allocated annual amount for each category of expenses is specified including personnel, equipment, consulting services, etc. Each of these is further sliced: personnel full-time, personnel part-time, personnel hourly, benefits, etc. Within personnel full-time, each title, number of positions and salary are listed.

Thus, every item of expenditure is accounted for. This is known as the line item budget. It is an accountant's dream. I attended a budget meeting years ago. The city was in dire financial straights, so the City Council was determined to review the budget "line by line." No expenditure was small enough to escape the notice of the legislators.

One said, "What's this $1,200 amount for staples? Sounds like an awful lot." It was explained that staples referred to the annual allocation for sandwiches and soft drinks supplied to the mayor, council members and city officials during the dinner break at meetings lasting between six and eight hours.

There are also enterprise funds targeted to provide specific services purchased through user charges. Municipally owned utilities are a primary example. Special assessment funds were established to provide a particular service and additional taxation to pay for it for a specific group within a jurisdiction. This might include a downtown area requiring enhanced lighting and cleaning services. Today, these are often called business improvement districts (BIDs).

The capital budget allocates resources to pay for large items that have a useful life of at least several years. These range from the construction of public buildings to vehicles for fire departments, refuse collection and highway maintenance. The capital budget is funded through bonds payable over various periods of time depending upon the items they purchase.

Unions and Collective Bargaining

The most far reaching law concerning labor relations with private sector unions in the United States is the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) passed in 1935. It was a cornerstone of the social legislation enacted at the height of the Great Depression.

In the private sector, unions reached their heyday in the 1940s and 1950s. At their height, they represented over 30% of the workforce. It was the golden age of the automobile. The United Auto Workers represented practically all employees in that industry except those exempted by the NLRA.

The United Mine Workers and the Teamsters were also very powerful unions. Each trade had its union: carpenters, machinists, printers and steel workers. In 1955, two umbrella unions, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, united into the behemoth AFL-CIO.

By the early 1960s, American industry, pre-eminent after its victory in World War II, was starting to see foreign competition. Japan was rising to become an industrial power, at first with cheaply made clothing and disposable consumer products, and then with compact automobiles. As a result, unions, especially those representing workers in heavy industries such as coal mining, steel production and automobile manufacturing, were starting to come under increasing pressure to "tone down" demands at the bargaining table.

Other unions were facing automation. The New York metropolitan area had traditionally been the center of the printing industry in the United States. The vast majority of workers were represented by the International Typographical Union #6 (ITU #6). Within it, there were specific trades such as linotype machine operators, pressman and compositors.

The linotype, invented in 1886, was a large machine with a keyboard. The operator typed copy that would be stamped into 1/16 inch hot lead wafers. They would cool and then fall into a pocket at the base of the machine. The operator would then check accuracy by reading the wafers. Basic maintenance of the machine was also required of the operator.

All this changed with early word processing machines. A skilled and well-paid trade was automated out of existence almost overnight. This happened repeatedly to trades once thought to provide a lifetime of well-paid employment. Of course, unions, including the once mighty ITU #6, were decimated.

During the first half of the 20th century, the vast majority of states prohibited government employees from unionizing. A defining moment was the strike by Boston police officers in 1919. Over 1000 participants were fired. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge stated: "There is no right to strike against the public safety anywhere, any time."

Rather than unions, employees in many states and cities organized into associations that sought to meet with governors and mayors and lobby legislators for better compensation and working conditions.

Starting in the 1950's, some legislatures, primarily in the industrial states, became more sympathetic to the idea of public employee unions. In the private sector, unions had increased the living standards of many of their constituents. The first state to pass a collective bargaining law was Wisconsin in 1959.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Putting Your Local Government on a $ Diet by Matthew Iarocci Copyright © 2011 by Matthew Iarocci. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---