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From Governing’s
Grading the Counties introductionFebruary 2002 issue
THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT
Report Card:
Nowadays, thanks to strong leadership, multiple management initiatives, a healthy economy and a less-needy Detroit, Wayne County has recorded a string of balanced budgets. A successful managed-care initiative — with patients parceled out among four private companies — helped erase the budget deficit. Bond ratings remain lower than in most other large counties but are rising. Sixty-five percent of the roads are in good condition or better.
County Executive Ed McNamara, who has served in that position since 1987, is one of only three elected county officials in the state with powers comparable to those of a big-city mayor. What’s more, the Wayne County executive has more appointing authority and control over the budgets of the other elected officials than in any other Michigan county. McNamara’s authority to take decisive action has proven crucial in driving the county’s recovery.
The one major area the county executive doesn’t completely control is the court system. Although the county pays for staff, personnel are managed by the courts themselves. The Circuit Court was in deficit in FY2000 and probably will be again in FY2001. “You can control expenses by holding up hiring, but I can’t do that in the courts,” says Patrice McKinnon, the county budget director.
Next year, McNamara plans to retire. A new terminal at Detroit’s Metropolitan Wayne County Airport already has been named for him. That terminal, scheduled to open later this month, is part of a $2 billion airport expansion that is one of a number of ambitious economic development projects in the county.
Given those expansion costs, the county has to do some serious worrying about the economic slide and its impact on air travel. Local taxes and fees (for example, parking at the airport) are already down, and the burden of a $1 billion revenue problem in the state budget is likely to fall on the backs of counties as well.
Positives: Balanced general fund budgets in recent years; five-year budget projections; revenue estimates serve as cap on spending; reserves in place; county well within debt limits; good efforts at communicating financial information to citizens; good inroads toward e-commerce, including online auctions and posting of bid opportunities.
Negatives: Circuit court operating in deficit; sheriff’s office has overspent budget in the past several years; managers lack flexibility in dealing with departmental funds; need for county commission approvals can slow contracting.
Positives: Major airport-renovation project on budget, although a few months behind schedule; county levies on departments support building maintenance; long-overdue study in progress on building needs and costs required to bring facilities to good condition; comprehensive five-year capital plan, updated annually.
Negatives: Automated systems not yet used to track condition of facilities; approach to roads has been more reactive than proactive, and decline in gas tax funds may curtail preventive maintenance efforts; 22 percent of roads still listed as poor, although much improvement in road condition over past 15 years.
Positives: Hiring relatively speedy, given civil service/union environment; innovations in recruitment used, such as online job fair; probationary period successful in weeding out poor employees; reduction in titles helps increase flexibility in classification system; new emphasis on centralized training, including development of comprehensive management training and better needs-analysis; integrated HR management information system scheduled for completion in 2002.
Negatives: Performance appraisal not required after probationary period; limited hiring lists reduce managerial flexibility; heavily unionized workforce creates difficulties in rewarding superior performance; more formal long-term workforce planning needed.
Positives: Commission and executive establish goals and objectives annually; goals for all departments included in budget; some departments, notably Economic Development and Community Justice, particularly good at planning and assessment of outcomes; performance measures used skillfully in some contracts.
Negatives: No recent countywide strategic plan; limited citizen involvement in strategic planning; no common format to departmental strategic plans; performance information not a focus of county commission; performance measures sporadic in budget and tend to track workload, not effectiveness or efficiency.
Positives: Vast progress since 1980s; criminal justice data warehouse; new accounting system; integrated HR information system coming; three-year IT strategic plan, includes strong e-government component; customer-satisfaction surveys used to evaluate new systems; IT performance data tracked; successful outsourcing.
Negatives: Some significant missing pieces — network speed and power lacking outside downtown area, although anticipated by end of 2002; end-user training needs improvement; Web site limited but improvements slated; GIS in early stages.
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ayne County has come far since the mid-1980s, when some managers “filed” unpaid bills in old shoeboxes, awaiting the attention of some poor soul in the indeterminate future. While the absence of computers at that time put Wayne only a few years behind the rest of American local government, the same cannot be said for the money shortage that made even the purchase of new typewriters difficult. Bond ratings were at abysmal levels, indigent-care costs had pushed the general fund deficit close to $200 million, and barely a third of the roads were in good condition.