Basic services budgets have been whittled away for several years now. There may be a couple more things to do in those areas, but probably no significant savings. The first place to look for savings would be those areas that had huge increases in budget over the past several years including the City Coordinators Office and the Office Of Cultural Affairs.
By far, the biggest savings will probably come from reinventing the delivery of services through the MCDA, Planning & NRP programs. But in order for this to be successful, it needs to be done with employees completely involved in the defining of the vision, mission and goals of this new combined department. And employees need to be completely involved in the entire process without management or politicians sweeping out the floor from underneath the process. To mean that means providing leadership, education and dialogue - not edicts. The other area of savings would probably come from reducing the city's role in social services. This is something that traditionally the state and county have provided. With the state reducing aid to cities perhaps the cities should return responsibility of social services to the counties and the state. A management restructuring might get some savings and there should also be a comprehensive look at the cost differential between privatization of some city services and in house costs. Two cents from the peanut gallery... R u s s e l l W. P e t e r s o n Saint Michael, Minnesota [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________________________ "You can only fly if you stretch your wings." _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
