1999-12-04 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 12-04-99Page 35 of 39 MARTIN: You can take pokes at anything you want, at some point in time. The thing is, what are we going to do with this passage. RAY: Sue. IRVINE: My opinion, that if we take this out, or try to take this out, it’s not going to work politically because it sounds like we’re giving up accountability. Therefore, I think we have to find something to replace this by way of saying, each department will have goals in mind, and will, every four years, say whether they are meeting these goals. You know, performance standards, that sort of thing. Something to replace this with. HERKES: My understanding is this is not department. This is programs. IRVINE: Okay, well each program in each department. HERKES: So, as you do outsourcing and managed competition, as these become, and I’ve talked about this before, more popular, you do more of them. Setting up outcomes and measurements in the contracts before the money is appropriated, and that is done by the people that get the money. It’s done in the RFP. The RFP goes out and when the proposal comes back, it has measurements, outcomes, and when the program is over, and the funds then allocated, then all you do is say, give me a report on measurements. These are what you’re supposed to have done. Give me a report on how you’ve met your goals. IRVINE: Okay. But we can’t be that specific in the Charter, but we could mandate that every department do something like this for each program, and they only have to set it up one time, and then - HERKES: Tweak it every year. IRVINE: Yes, tweak it, rather than these pragmatic - RAY: Roland. HIGASHI: Mr. Chair, could we ask our secretary to look into the records and see what the rationale, including this, in the last Charter Amendment? It was adopted in ‘79 or ‘89. RAY: So, I think it’s been there 20 years. HIGASHI: I’m looking at the ‘79 proposal, and again, find out what was the rationale? KUROZAWA: I guess I agree with what everybody’s saying, in the sense that we probably shouldn’t take it out, but one thought is we make it very general, in the sense that don’t give any set time deadlines, don’t give any set everything, but leave it up to the Council to review programs at their discretion. Then it becomes the Council’s duty to answer to the public, if they’re doing it or not doing it. But, if we make it too specific, we already know they don’t have the money to do it, and it may not be feasible to do it. So, it’s something to think about, I think, when we do the wording for this. SANTANGELO: John, just one last comment. Maybe we need to get our information, and instead of, kind of, out here in a vacuum, and what looks good. I mean, it’s not television. Maybe we need to understand, again, who brought it up, why this came up, and what was the purpose of it, and maybe understand a little bit more because we’re dealing in perceptions. And, we’ve done so much damn bad government because of perception, and never dealt with the reality of it, and maybe I’d change my mind. RAY: Steve. BESS: I was just going to say that we can get into the details of how to handle this, but it would seem to me, given what’s been said here, that if you said something to the effect that if the Council deemed necessary, it may, and departments shall, in response to that, do this, so that it’s not mandatory. It’s clear that they have the power anyway, to do it, and from a political standpoint, that might fly. It doesn’t look like you’re removing accountability. HERKES: I have, on a note here, that it says that the Council deems the approval of the budget, as approval of the programs. Do they say that? When they release the budget, does the press release say, by releasing this budget, we are approving the file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 12-04-99.html7/1/2011