Cobb County's leaders need to clearly define their priorities, make some tough decisions, improve their public relations efforts and above all, implement a couple of oversight committees to monitor it all according to the final report of a select citizens committee on the county's spending and organization.
Tuesday’s presentation was an extension of the committee’s mid-term report released in June, that recommended county leaders eliminate employee furloughs because they were hurting morale and reassess its medical benefits to save money. Many of the same observations and recommendations -- some of which have been implemented -- reappeared in the final report, evident that some of the concerns and importance was still there.
The committee found that employee moral remained low, officials were reluctant to make tough organizational and personnel decisions, and that some departments had too many managers. It recommended the county take more control of its economic development efforts, eliminate redundancies -- especially in the public safety departments -- and make decisions on cuts and enhancements on a case by case basis, not across the board.
A new item included in the final report was a recommended three-level priority ranking of county services, classifying essential services like public safety and courts, to services like senior centers and public health that could be provided elsewhere. With Cobb County, like most in the country, facing years of declining tax revenues and limited money to spend, the prioritizing is necessary to make tough budget decisions, committee members said.
The final report does not include a total amount of possible savings that the cuts or reductions could mean for the county. Not including a final figure was done intentionally, said Brett McClung who served as the committee chairman.
"We didn't want to quantify the recommendations because we didn't want the focus to be on dollars," he said. "We wanted the focus to be on changes and the recommendations we proposed." The 118 page report will be available online at www.cobbcountyga.gov.
Cobb officials and residents have been waiting for months on the committee’s report. Commissioners and department chiefs have used the report as a delay in making all sorts of decisions from employee pay raises to service cuts and combining some public safety units. The report has also been held out as a promise for spending cuts and more efficient government.
Like other areas that have established similar groups, Cobb’s citizens committee is a byproduct of the budget. Commissioners established and appointed the committee of private, but well-connected, residents, in December 2010.The committee started work last March, and when the county faced two multi-million dollar budget deficits, their work become more important.
To complete their work, the 10 committee members were given open access to county operations and records, completed numerous interviews and site visits with staff and were provided a county administrative assistant and meeting space. They were not compensated for their work.
"The biggest thing now that we need to do is to not approach this from ‘what can we not do?'" said County Commissioner Bob Ott after the presentation. " We need to approach it from ‘how can we make these things work?' It's typical to say, we can't do that, we can't do that, but we should do as much as we can to see what we can put in place."
Cobb’s oversight committee is similar to Gwinnett County’s Engage Gwinnett citizens committee that made more than 100 recommendations for that county.
But not all counties have embraced the community involvement.
Earlier this month the Cherokee County Commission decided to end its relationship with a similar type of citizens group that was formed last year to advise the county on spending cuts after commissioners raised tax rates . Commissioners said the Cherokee group was divisive and difficult to work with; group leaders lamented the commission’s decision not to implement their recommendations.
Cobb's committee recommendations do not necessarily have to be implemented by county leaders. But, with so much attention on the report, and election-year scrutiny of officials' effectiveness, many of the recommendations are sure to be enacted.
Some of the recommendations are long term, such as implementing a much-needed comprehensive IT system, expanding and empowering the county's internal audit department, and establishing compensation and oversight committees; others are more immediate like establishing a strategic plan, which county leaders are already working on and should have completed in the next few weeks.
There has been some discussion of making the oversight committee a permanent county function, but that may not be advisable, committee chairman McClung said. .
"A committee like ours got so in-depth on so many different departments. That could get out of control, honestly. Thankfully the committee had no one with ulterior motives and hidden agendas," he said. "We do think the audit and compensation committees can help and would do what we've done in a different way by deciding who gets what, and monitoring virtually every aspect of what's going on."
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What's next: County department heads and staff have a month to review the report and report back to the Board of Commissioners. A daylong retreat with county staff leadership and commissioners to analyze the findings is set for March 26.
Some of the highlights of the 118 page report, which will be available online at www.cobbcountyga.gov:
- Four smaller libraries, with low circulation and close to other branches should be closed
- The county should stop saying it is under a hiring freeze because employees are still being hired when necessary
- Across-the-board decisions (ex: raises, budget cuts) should be avoided
- An onsite employee clinic should be considered; possible $2 million annual medical costs savings
- The county should seek help from the school system in funding and staffing the Safety Village, which provides training on things such as fire safety and evacuation drills and "stranger danger."
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