2011-01-14 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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MS. NICHOLSON: Let’s put it this way. Your response could have been multiple pages. MR. HOFFMANN: Yes, it could have been. And that would have made for absolutely boring reading. I think I’d like to discuss this from two different aspects. And I see this from two different problems or perspective. The difficulty,and I hearken to the mayor’s comments made just made just a couple of days ago at the State Legislature, when he commented that we now have a government or county government that we cannot afford. Folks, some of us anyway on the council, have been reminding everyone of that for a number of years. And that’s part of the problem that we have. And I consider this from two, as I say, from two aspects. One is the obvious budget crunching things. How can we take the budget we got? How can we start slicing and reducing it and making it smaller? I’ll go through some suggestions I have on that. That’s a numbers again. I don’t mean that derogatorily at all. These are important things that we, hi Bill, good morning. These are important things, I think that the council and the administration, working together, okay, please emphasize the cooperation on this particular point. And I don’t mean to demean that, but I don’t think after looking or trying to study this from my perspective as a council representative, I’m not quite certain that that’s the most important way of trying to look at how to reduce and be more effective in the manner in which we do our job. I think there’s a much more fundamental and underlining problem we have. And that problem as I see it rests with an attitude that we have in government and outside of government. And that attitude, perhaps can be explained in a number of different things. I hate to use sound bites because I’m not certain that those adequately We’ve always done it this way explain either. But let me put it in this way –. And somewhere along the line we have to be smart enough, and courageous enough politically, in order to say to ourselves, that ain’t good enough. Now if it isn’t evident to anyone in elected office that over the past three or four years this county and the residents are suffering. Please take a look at some of the statistics you have on home foreclosures, on people going to the Food Basket and using their services. These are basic necessities. These are basic priorities for government. And the idea and the approach that we use that –well we’ve always done it this way, isn’t good enough at this point. You ask in your questions, what are essential priorities for government? I look at of course, it’s the obvious, public health and safety. We all say that. I go one step further and maybe you can put that under public health. There were two other basic necessities that I think any government who have people under their jurisdiction must provide for. And that’s adequate food and housing. So when I look at the situation the county is faced with, this idea, well, it’s always the way done we’ve done it. And dog gone it, it’s hard to make changes. I recognize that. But until we’re willing, as elected officials, the mayor and the council, working together. And until the administration and the council is willing to work together as a team to address this and to make the real tough decisions, then we don’t make the progress that we need to. You, members of this particular commission, have a much more tough job, I think, because your approach will always remain. It’s so easy to do the dollar and cents, the budget crunching numbers and so forth. Everybody can find ways of trying to cut the budget. But until we change that basic attitude that I mentioned, I think we’ve gotten off or we’re not going to achieve the type of cuts, the type of effectiveness we should. Also, let me put this too in another perspective. I don’t necessarily view all of our cost of government as being bad. I don’t think a bureaucracy is illogical. And I don’t think it’s ineffective. It’s how we use those resources that we have of course that is the key to 4