2006-12-07 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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Although the County's Civil Defense Agency is well known, there are still isolated pockets around the island. A communication network needs to be set, and R &D has a kumiai project working on this now. C. Do you see any way to consolidate services, activities, and functions of a similar nature within your own department as well as with other departments? Ms. Testa said that R &D is trying to draft a grants program in such a way that they can identify grant coaches to work with the different departments. If the departments can identify employees who will have dedicated time towards this and see it as a way to increase their resources rather than drain their time, it could make a difference for departments. It is shortsighted when they say they don't have an employee available to do grants. The longer -term vision is to build the capacity of the employee, and in doing so, departments will find their resources, manpower, and abilities more efficient. Departments need to sacrifice to leverage for the longer haul. Otherwise, they will stay in crisis mode all the time. Ms. Testa said R &D recommended that the Human Resources Department hire one H.R. employee to handle all the H.R. work for all the smaller departments who are doing it in- house. The smaller departments would be like a hui, and the one H.R. employee could do the work more effectively than the employees in the smaller departments. This would free the smaller departments to use their employees' time towards their normal functions. Human resources work is very time - consuming. She believed the Human Resources Department may have implemented this already. Another idea Ms. Testa had is to have departments be more function -based and issue - based. They need to focus on addressing issues, rather than working in silos. They need to draw together all the players and work together on the issues. Groups could be formed to tackle certain issues, and community members could go to the groups for answers rather than going from department to department, getting different answers. d. Are there any services, activities, and functions not necessary to efficient conduct of government that could be eliminated? Ms. Testa said she did not know the answer and would have to research much deeper and know the perspective. e. Can privatization help you? If so, in what ways? What would you privatize? Ms. Testa said R &D contracts out with the private sector all the time. Even for staffing needs, rather than hiring staff, they contract out within communities with people who live and work there. She would like to be able to have on retainer contracts community citizens who have specific skill sets. R &D could call on them for specific things. They have liaison contracts now, but would like to have it more formalized. There should be less of a schism between communities and governments. They should not be adversarial. It should not be big government coming in and doing things, but a good relationship should be established because there is a liaison and network relationship built in. 31