So there’s no need for/benefit from speculation about “bureaucratic reaction” since it’s not about trust, just improved efficiency. It’s a subtle point. In other words, to finish my thought in #4, if one does trust staff, might it be ‘cleaner’ (and more honest) to frame it in terms of rewards for additional efforts?

By the way, Jack, I read your comments closely because you generally put a lot of thought into them, which I appreciate.

Re (4) I don’t think providing broad policy direction and financial incentives for achieving the policy goals is an indication of lack of trust. Moreover, I think it would be entirely inappropriate for Council “to build a case” for any staff member’s departure. The Council sets policies and spending priorities. The Administrator supervises staff. Council should not reach down into the organization to direct the work of any staff person below the City Administrator. Developing cost cutting goals is the kind of policy that Council should set. Providing incentives, of whatever kind, is also the kind of issue that is reasonably within the Council’s authority.

The Council often adopts policy intended to nudge residents out or their cars into bus onr onto bikes; policies intended to nudge people who might live in the urban sprawl areas to instead live in downtown highrises. If we believe that you can create incentives for proper behavior in those realms, it should be possible to find incentives for staff to identify new cost savings. I don’t insist on bonuses, I just used that as an example.

Providing incentives for identifying cost savings is meant to break the cycle of renewing the previous budget with a little more added for inflation or new initiatives.

I would not want to see the department head’s bonuses to (potentially) depend upon forcing salary cuts on everyone else in the department.

The interview includes this: “Askins: I think [Ward 2 councilmember] Jane Lumm expressed some frustration about why aren’t we doing that. Why aren’t we identifying some reduction target to hit – because we should always be reducing by some amount to see what the departments come up with in response to that?”

The administrators seem to believe that we have made such significant budget cuts that we need to stop cutting for at least one budget. I completely disagree. The City government should always be looking for ways to provide public services more efficiently.

I think at this point, where the administrators are unable to identify ways to cut costs, there are two possible responses for Council.

First, Council could finds ways to create incentives for cost savings. For example, the salary of each department head could include a set percentage of their annual salary as a bonus for finding ways to save without cutting services. If the department head fails to achieve the efficiency goal, they would not receive that portion of their salary identified as the bonus.

Second,in the alternative, Council could simply identify areas in the budget for cuts. Something like imposing a five percent cut on IT. It would then be up to the department to find the savings. This method has the drawback of permitting the department to identify cuts in popular items so the public complains about the cuts.

The Council recently rejected the fire department’s plan to consolidate our 5 fire stations into just 3 stations. In apparent reaction to the rejection of the consolidation plan, the fire department is now changing the location of essential equipment as if to seek failure. For example just one of the recent changes in fire equipment deployment includes moving the emergency vehicle that is equipped with extraction equipment (to rescue victims trapped in vehicles or machinery) from the downtown station to north campus. Thus, for much of the City the response time for that essential equipment has been unnecessarily increased. Why? Nothing in the rejection of the 3 station plan requires that change. Is this the result of someone not liking the Council’s decision and seeking ways to undermine the 5 station plan?

It should be clear that Council should not micro-manage departments. Yet, if Council makes budget decisions that shift funds from less necessary areas to important services, we face the prospect of bureaucratic reaction. I believe it is important to build in some form of incentive to get staff to bring all of its talent to the task of finding efficiencies. I do not believe that this is the time to stop looking for efficiencies.

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