2010-10-08 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

Home

the various departments cause some find this process easier than others. And for whatever reasons we need to identify what those reasons are. But there is some tightening up that has to be done to improve the quality of services that we get under contract. Like I said, the contracting process is one thing. But then ensuring that we get the quality of services that we’ve contracted for is another. And who is providing that oversight cause that then falls into the operations side of things. It’s something that needs to be looked at overall as a policy issue for the county I would think, to make it a little tighter and improve our cost savings. MS. GARSON: If there is somebody here you can ask them questions. MS. O’HARA: I guess it’s identifying who all we need. MR. TAKABA: You can look at, take Finance Department. It’s a staff agency. It services the county. Even like HR would service the county. That’s another staff agency. If you take these departments within the department, you would see like you mentioned procurement, the revenue generating committee might want to look at Real Property Tax Division and ask questions about that. How can we improve our revenue collections? Are the delinquencies too high? Things like that. There’s also other, like HR, you might want to have them discuss could the hiring process be improved? Things like that. Do we have to spend so much on advertising or whatever. But I think if you focus on a lot of the staff departments that serve the county, you could get several areas of discussion going. So, it’s up to the commission what they want to see and what kind of concerns you have. What you want to see explained better maybe. MS. O’HARA: Well, for the idea of looking at how the county’s contracting process goes from beginning to end. The entities involved would be Procurement on the front end. MR. TAKABA: And you mentioned contracting too, so that will involve maybe an attorney. MS. O’HARA: Is there an attorney that specific for the procurement? MS. GARSON: We all review contracts. The attorney for the Purchasing Division is Craig Masuda who is also an attorney for Public Works who does a lot of construction contracts. MR. TAKABA: Maybe two attorneys, one construction and the other one for, I don’t know who from your, is there somebody that really specializes in it? MS. GARSON: It’s primarily Craig Masuda. MR. TAKABA: Craig. Because he’s Purchasing. So procurement and contracting would be one. We already talked about technology. And that would be Data Systems. Corporation Counsel is heavily into laser fische. Maybe somebody who is most familiar with laser fische can explain what he or she feels. 15