CHC 1979-05-22 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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walked in from Chicago and =he s-aid, I 'm an industrial engineer, I won ' t tell you the name of"the firm, and he said, we ' d like to get in here and analyze your operation and ' you pay us 25% of any savings. I thought , well this is easy, we ' re going to get an organization review for about $5 , 000 bucks. Do you know, we paid those people $22.5 , 000 the first year. What was wrong? Myopic vision , You run your own operation , you say, we can ' t do it any better than this. But when you get somebody in from the outside who is a pro at this, believe me, I would bet you our personnel budget, our operating budgets here could be shaved by 10%, 15%, maybe 25%. So, that is what I mean by review. You introduce these schemes as you go along and you give them objectives , all right, you are going to have to trim down , you are going to have to be more productive in your- department in the next year and I want to see what it is at the end of the year. MR. ISHIDA: How do we take care of it in the charter, though? MR. TYLER: I 'm not sure what the wording of the charter is vis=a-vis the obligation--the fiscal responsible obligation--I don ' t know to what detail the charter goes. But I am convinced of this , that if you make your charter one that will undergird our government with those six r ' s, and you have people like this who are willing to go to a meeting once a year and pound on the table and say, damn it, we want an office in Kona and we don ' t want any more money spent, they will find a way to do it. I don ' t think you have to address those specifics in the charter. I don ' t recommend you do. I think you have to depend on citizen participation. The councilmen being responsive to their citizenry and talking in the council about these things. That, I think, is the way it has to be done. MR. ISHIDA: How can we cover it in the charter so that the government is required to do this? MR. TYLER: Can ' t you make a statement that an annual review of all department budgets is required? MR. ISHIDA: It can be said, but, then as long as people understand that once that general provision is inserted then it becomes upon them to see that it is implemented. MR. TYLER: Right. We discussed this point with Mayor Matayoshi and I guess with almost everyone of the council- men , this last year. We suggested, and I think the one who picked it up and seemed most responsive was Joe Garcia, that what they ought to have is a standing citizens ' review committee. Once a year, sit i'n. on it and look at what happened. Sort of a local Hoover commission. Herb said he thought it was a _great -26-