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From Governing’s
Grading the Counties introductionFebruary 2002 issue
THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT
Report Card:
This isn’t to say that Hamilton has had an easy time over the past decade. The county had some financial struggles in the early 1990s and lost its AAA bond rating. Currently, county finances are aching as a result of cutbacks made by the state. Handling these problems is made more difficult by a fragmented political structure that gives much independence to the six separately elected county officials, who are not beholden either to the three-member board of commissioners or to the county administrator. This is particularly a problem in the field of information technology. “We’ve provided carrots and incentives to get people moving in similar directions, we can’t make them do it,” says Eric Stuckey, the deputy administrator.
Meanwhile, Hamilton is facing unpleasant controversy over the lead role its officials played in funding the new $455 million Paul Brown football stadium deal, as well as significant other riverfront development. When Cincinnati’s fractious government proved unable to broker a stadium deal, the county stepped in and accomplished it. This enabled the area to retain the Bengals pro football team.
But stadium costs soared $45 million over budget, the result of agreements with the team that forced an accelerated schedule and gave the Bengals significant input on design. With prices having escalated even before construction began, the county had to spend contingency money as part of the upfront funding, leaving no contingency dollars available for use once the project was under way.
Now Hamilton County is constructing a baseball stadium for the Cincinnati Reds and seems to have learned from these mistakes. The project timeline is more reasonable, and design changes made by the baseball team must be paid for by the team itself. There is an ample contingency fund. The project-management function has been enhanced, and reports to the public have been more frequent.
Positives: Active investment tracking; strong efforts at activity-based costing in social services, facilities and roads; careful attention to structural balance and maintaining solid balances; five-year financial plans for general fund and special tax levy funds; excellent communication of financial information to citizens; solid debt policies; electronic bid solicitation.
Negatives: General fund revenue estimates somewhat wide of mark; estimates of “managed care” savings in social services too optimistic; archaic regional debt limitation and other annoyances in “Ohio Revised Code”; no purchasing card; contract oversight spotty in places — could use more training.
Positives: Generally good long-range planning in place; strong facility management, with active benchmarking on private sector; good preventive maintenance; strong regional long-term planning with multi-modal outlook to improve transportation from suburbs to Cincinnati; public involvement in transportation; strong condition-assessment and maintenance-management systems for both facilities and roads.
Negatives: Major $45 million overrun on new football stadium; resurfacing cycle on roads somewhat lengthy; although long-range planning is generally strong, capital plan for roads is only of two-year duration.
Positives: Strong emphasis on training and development; expanded tuition-reimbursement program; pay for performance for nearly 70 percent of workforce, including three of 10 bargaining units; non-cash reward mechanisms in place as well; five-year HR strategic plan, with attention to year-by-year workforce planning through budget; good employee performance-appraisal instruments; smooth labor relations, with very few grievances; termination conducted in timely fashion.
Negatives: No central HR management information system, making some data hard to come by; multiple elected officials with separate hiring systems cause confusion for applicants; some elected officials opt out of county salary plan as well; state residency requirement sometimes makes hiring difficult for border county.
Positives: Annual planning process; performance information plays into budget allocation decisions; five-year program budget includes outcome indicators, providing strategic direction; good family of measures, including focus on service demand; good attention to performance audit; well-developed technology to track data, particularly in the Human Services, Facilities, and Job and Family Services departments.
Negatives: More regular updates of performance data and more solid countywide strategic planning would be helpful.
Positives: Strong network infrastructure; longtime cooperation in sharing of local law enforcement and court data; regional computer center provides good linkage between Cincinnati and rest of county; shared city and county GIS; information-processing advisory committee provides central focus on budgetary issues; five-year IT strategic plan; strong Web site with many transactions available.
Negatives: Decentralized operations with no chief information officer; procurement standardization a struggle; major technology procurements can be slow and cumbersome; manual effort still required for some payroll functions.
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amilton County prides itself on its professionalism. In recent years, while the city of Cincinnati has experienced political and managerial chaos, surrounding Hamilton has been a comparative oasis of stability. The current county administrator has held his job for 10 years. Hamilton was one of the first Ohio counties to establish a central personnel department, one that has often ended up on the award lists of national government organizations. The county has a long-standing tradition of performance measurement, and has prodded most of its agencies to develop an entire battery of workload, efficiency and outcome measures.