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Institute Unveils Proposal for City-Wide “Office of Management and Budget”

Restructuring Would Result in Cost-Efficient and Accountable Management

 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 14, 2004		 CONTACT:
Erica Mendelson - 858-503-6787
 
SAN DIEGO - As the City Council meets today to review the last batch of city department budgets, the Performance Institute will unveil a plan to achieve over $4.5 million in cost efficiencies city-wide in FY 2005 through the creation of an “Office of Management and Budget (OMB)” and other restructuring reforms. The proposal would go beyond the City’s proposal to dissolve the SD Data Processing Corporation. Under an OMB, the City would consolidate all financial management, information technology, human resources management, and procurement activities into a central “shared services” operation. The “shared services” model is a cost efficient structure used by virtually every large corporation in America and increasingly used by most levels of government.

Ironically, the City already claims to have centralized its administrative functions in these overhead areas. However, feedback from city employees and independent analysis of budgets of individual city departments reveals many of these administrative functions have been recreated over the years in each city department—creating a duplicative set of overhead operations across city government. Evidence of this duplication includes: 25 separate call centers operating in the General Fund, over 80 duplicative HR positions created in General Fund agencies outside of the City’s central HR Department, and over 100 duplicative IT positions (including 10 being filled by sworn police officers).

“Each city bureaucracy has created its own fiefdoms for their administrative services rather than pooling their resources to achieve economies of scale. This proposal ends the duplicative overhead costs in the city by creating an accountable, streamlined and centralized entity to oversee all administrative functions of the city,” notes Performance Institute President Carl DeMaio.

In addition to the creation of an Office of Management and Budget, a number of other restructuring reforms are being proposed under the Institute’s plan:

  • SD Data Processing Corporation: The Institute’s proposal would modify the city’s plans for SD Data Processing Corp. by exploring a sale of this asset to a firm that would buy the operation from the city—contracts, personnel, assets, etc. Short of a sale of DPC, the Institute would propose breaking DPC’s functions into individual contracts and bidding those out to outside firms.
  • Enhance City Manager Authority Over City Personnel: The Institute urges the Council to put a Charter amendment before voters to integrate the Personnel Department and Human Resources Department as well as enhancing the City Manager’s authority in hiring and firing city personnel.
  • Creation of Centralized “311” Citizen Service Center: A centralized citizen support center with a “311” phone number would be created to consolidate all city call centers and service staff, providing one-stop and accountable service to city residents.

Based here in San Diego, the Institute is a national government reform think tank that promotes the principles of performance, transparency, competition and accountability in government. Additional information on the San Diego Citizens’ Budget Project can be found at www.sandiegobudget.org.

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