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From Governing’s
Grading the Counties introductionFebruary 2002 issue
THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT
Report Card:
“For years,” says Chief Financial Officer Bill Kelly, “we were similar to other California counties in terms of being revenue-driven and always looking to the state or the feds to give us more money to do what we wanted to do. Then we realized that the amount of time and money we were using in those efforts made us less effective than properly using the money we have.”
The county decided to organize itself as much as possible according to the model of a private corporation. The administration was restructured into five different lines of business, each responsible for the total cost of services for which it had been entrusted by the board of supervisors. All of the five have their own finance directors, with a direct line relationship to their general manager and a dotted line relationship to the overall county CFO.
The primary benefit has been that each business line can operate with a slightly different structure, appropriate for its work. The public safety group, which includes the district attorney, sheriff’s office, and medical examiner, is highly structured — “a little paramilitary,” Kelly says. Health and human services has a different approach.
Meanwhile, the board of supervisors acts like a board of directors; setting policy and standards — based on a strategic plan — and focusing on the outcomes of the county’s actions, rather than getting deeply involved in the minutiae of government.
San Diego’s efforts have given it a managerial stability beyond those of most other California counties. Serious financial challenges remain, but the financial reforms have been rewarded with higher bond ratings from the national agencies, and further upgrades seem likely once the state’s utility problems have been solved. And all phases of government are growing more efficient as powerful new IT systems come on line. “Are there substantial areas where significant improvement is necessary? Yes,” Kelly admits. “One significant area we need to improve is to get more direct input from our citizens. We need to have a process where they can provide critical thinking to us about areas of improvement.”
Positives: National leader in use of cost accounting; focus on outcomes of good financial management; accurate estimates of revenue and expenditures; agencies stay on budget; sufficient reserves for unanticipated problems; organization of county into five business units increases efficiency and productivity; strong five-year financial forecasts; professionally managed investments with higher-than-typical returns for California counties; award-winning procurement process, with Internet-based bid solicitation; excellent debt-management practices.
Negatives: Up to now, weaknesses in information technology have restrained effective use of financial data.
Positives: Strong capital planning for both facilities and roads; departmental planning for facilities improving rapidly; reasonable citizen input; strong involvement from private sector in capital plans; project tracking avoids surprises; condition assessments for facilities on a three-year cycle; sufficient facility-maintenance funding; solid condition assessment of roads with excellent maintenance.
Negatives: Old financial management information system has impeded good data flow about capital; some departments still submit “wish lists” in capital requests; $200 million backlog of planned road projects.
Positives: National leader in group performance bonuses; move toward broadbanding in all unclassified and some classified positions; five-year contracts with most employees; increasingly competitive salaries; temporary salary increases for individuals who contribute to county goals; new technology improving workforce planning; good balance between centralized and decentralized control; countywide employee surveys; improved recruiting and training; grievance process reasonably smooth.
Negatives: Too many employees at top of pay grade — makes compensation increases difficult; too many classification titles; multiple bargaining units impede change; many salary increases still based on step system, so-called “pay for breathing”; discipline process cumbersome; weak individual appraisals.
Positives: Performance information drives operational and budgetary decisions; widespread collection and use of baseline data, with good validation; county disaggregates data to allow sub-units to benchmark on one another; all outside contracts tied to performance measures; new countywide strategic plan; agencies moving to strategic plans; good training on planning and performance measurement.
Negatives: More citizen participation needed; agency strategic plans need improvement.
Positives: Outsourcing of most IT services has been successful; reasonable strategic planning, although no singular document for IT; new Web site vast improvement over prior effort; GIS among the best anywhere; good tracking of new projects; solid post-implementation project review.
Negatives: Current entity-wide information systems antiquated, although new ones coming on line soon; procurement slightly slow; behind the curve with online citizen transactions.
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s much as any county in the country, San Diego County has taken advantage of hard times and bad luck to redirect and revitalize its government. Like the rest of the state, it was hit hard by tax-cutting Proposition 13, and then by the economic recession of the early 1990s. But it has used those problems as a spur to managerial creativity that has had a profound effect on its 17,000 employees and its $3.7 billion budget.