2010-07-30 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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K. GARSON: The other thing is the minutes are available from the last meeting too, so you did invite all of the departments in there. I think those are on the website, all of the past minutes. You can take a look at those if anybody needs it printed, I can have them for you too. MS. O’HARA: Did everyone that was invited to come speak in terms of their department, or were some departments a no show? MS. GARSON: I think everybody came. MS. NICHOLSON: They all came. We had to reschedule some times because there were conflicts. MS. O’HARA: It says in this letter dated April 10 to the Director of DEM, Thank you for attending the Cost of Government meeting, so I assume this was a follow-up questionnaire after a presentation to that commission? And I think just because we have such short time would it not be better to get at least some information up front before they come before us? And I think again if we make our survey a lot more explicit, fill in the blank kind of thing, list and prioritize the three most important core services that your department provides. Things like that where we start to get some of the concepts that we’re looking for up front. And then have them come and do a longer presentation. It might make more sense for us in terms of the work we’re doing. MS. PROVALENKO: That’s what we did the last time. We got the feedback from them first, and then we reviewed it. MR. MATSUDA : That can be in the minutes. MR. TAKABA: So, if they don’t submit anything, when they come, at least they’ll come with something to say. A lot of times if they don’t have to show up, they may not even send in anything. And I think that’s where we have some void because some departments will not send in. But if they’re all scheduled to show up to present whether it’s 15 minutes or 20 minutes, they’re going to have to prepare something. Hopefully we can get it in advance. They may turn it in the same day they present it. MS. PROVALENKO: I think we asked them to present it to us in advance, cause when we would get the agenda, it was generally attached to the agenda so we would have time to review it. MR. TAKABA: There are 22 departments and agencies including the County Council. I think its 19 administrative, three Council. MS. NICHOLSON: Plus the boards and commissions. MS. GARSON: Clerk, Council, Leg Auditor. MR. TAKABA: So, that’s the review and we have to divide depending on how many hours we want to dedicate to interviews. If you’re going to talk to everybody, you need to divide it by departments, the amount of time you’re going to spend. 26