2010-07-30 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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MS. PROVALENKO: And as Mr. Takaba said, at that time we had money, so this is a whole new animal going in here now. So, it’s more like how can we make it more efficient. Efficiency was probably the main focus at that point in time. MS. NICHOLSON: Rather than cost cutting it was efficiency. I think this is a whole new world. MS. O’HARA: Efficiency is cost cutting. MR. TAKABA: We also interviewed the departments. We had the departments come up. It was helpful. MS. NICHOLSON: It was very interesting. It was very helpful for us to understand how various departments worked. But all and all, I’m not sure that we did get, we didn’t go too far down because there’s so much ground to cover. So, I guess I’m trying to figure out a way where we can actually get some substance done here. MS. O’HARA: I like the format of this formal letter, but I think it can be improved upon. If we do something like this to the departments and just make it more specific. Every question here is very open ended. Do you see any ways to consolidate services? Please give us two ways that your department can consolidate and be real specific on the questions. I think we might get better information back if we’re a little more demanding on our approach and clear in what we want then to provide. I think it would also, something missing from all of these questions - is there anyway to enhance revenues? A lot of these departments have external sources of revenue whether it be from fees collected, grants. Revenue enhancement is part of the picture that I’d really like to hear from the departments on ways that that could be accomplished. Those are some things we could add into a letter to the departments. MR. MATSUDA : Yeah, that is good because they’re the ones that are running the so called departments. They would have ideas or as far as suggestions of where we can cut or we can elaborate on. But bottom line as she says here is just getting the idea of the focus on where, because they’re doing it every single day, where they can say okay, I don’t see you with this, or we can cut down or curtail on this. Then at least it’s a start for us, then we can start the ball rolling from them and continue from there. At least it will give us an idea where to start. Because the bottom line is how we are going to start for each and every department. And by having something like that, I think it will be beneficial, however it’s their response that’s going to be given to us if any kind of response like Ken said here, there was no response or whatever. I think that’s the focus on what needs to be done or what we need to accept. Once we receive it then the ball’s in our court. At least, I think that’s a starting pint. MS. WONG: I think if we send out a letter similar to this or a survey before our next meeting and we can get those responses that will give us at least some data to take the next step towards how to approach. And from that information we can maybe look at the core government responsibilities along with the Charter. And part of the reason that I was asking about the grants, which departments have grants, when I looked at the departments I felt why is Parks and Recreation handling things that I thought Office of Aging should have. Any maybe some things could be privatized and some things 21