2006-12-07 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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The Chair said he is sure that all departments are aware of the program and that the departments which brought up this issue seemed to be looking for a more immediate award to give employees who went above and beyond, not just a once a year award. Ms. Nicholson suggested they just move on. 10. DISCUSSION ON AND DRAFTING OF FINAL REPORT The commissioners noted that all the recommendations listed under agenda item 10 were already voted on and accepted for the final draft. Mr. Joseph said that unless there was a specific item someone wanted to go over, he did not believe it was necessary to go through them again. Motion and Vote: Ms. Nicholson moved to accept all the recommendations as presented in agenda item 10. Mr. Joseph seconded the motion. After no further discussion, all commissioners present voted aye. The Chair clarified that all recommendations under agenda item 10 were accepted. The Chair directed the meeting back to agenda item 7. 7. DISCUSSION /ACTION ON ITEMS TO ADD TO FINAL REPORT BASED ON RECOMMENDATIONS PROPOSED BY COMMISSIONER MELVYN SAKAGUCHI Mr. Sakaguchi explained that when he submitted his recommendations, he was informed he could not submit it with his rationale, as it would have constituted a violation. He said that as a preface, he was looking at all the recommendations they had acted on for a bigger picture, an overview. This was how he came to his recommendations. Also, he had made two observations. The first is that, in his opinion, there is a culture of "don't make waves as far as County government is concerned." He said he also felt, with the exception of very few people, that the majority of the public administrators the COGC spoke to were managers and bureaucrats. They were not leaders. He said this means it will be an uphill battle if their recommendations were to be implemented. The environment is such that any recommendation won't be taken seriously. Mr. Sakaguchi said that he made his first recommendation (for each department to have an easy -to -read budget) because there is no one document that includes all the budget information. There are capital improvement budgets, operating budgets, etc. You have to keep going to another source for the information. He would recommend they have easy -to -read, comprehensive budgets. The Chair asked Mr. Sakaguchi to go through his recommendations one at a time and they could vote on each one. Mr. Sakaguchi went back to his first recommendation: a. Each department should have an easy -to -read budget which includes operating funds, personnel costs (including the number of positions in the department), cars 10