Mayor Rahm Emanuel
On Thursday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel met with City of Chicago of department leaders and their employees to discuss the progress of current efficiency initiatives aimed at improving city services, achieving cost savings and streamlining operations.
“I commend these departments for the real progress they are making,” said Mayor Emanuel. “The entire city government should be focused on delivering better services to Chicago’s taxpayers at a lower cost; for our city to be the most competitive in the nation, our government needs to be as effective and efficient as it can be. These departments and agencies are doing that.”
The meeting came on the heels of an announcement that Chicago will receive an investment of $2 million a year for three years from Bloomberg Philanthropies to create an Innovation Delivery Team tasked with developing and implementing new solutions to improve the efficiency of City government, namely in the areas of time in line for permitting and licensing, and the energy costs faced by homeowners.
During a visit to the Water Management Jardine facility as part of his ongoing outreach with city departments, Mayor Emanuel received progress reports from Water Management Commissioner Thomas Powers, General Services and Fleet Management Commissioner David Reynolds, Chancellor of the City Colleges Cheryl Hyman, Chief Technology Officer John Tolva, and several city employees from those agencies.
The Commissioners and employees detailed improvements they’ve achieved in their departments. Highlights from their reports include:
City Colleges of Chicago:
• Identified $30 million through reductions in operating and administrative costs and has invested that in student learning.
• Hired a full-time Inspector General that has allowed the agency to crack down more aggressively on cases of fraud and abuse.
• Proposed a fiscal year 2012 budget that reduces executive management by 10 percent, implemented a hiring freeze and increased procurement efficiencies and increased energy efficiency initiatives.
Department of General Services and Fleet Management:
• Will save $1.81 million through reduction of City’s light duty vehicle fleet by more than 75 vehicles and switching 250 city-owned vehicles to leases.
• Will optimize real estate use through better alignment of staffing and service delivery
• Developing long-term real estate strategy to consolidate operations and reduce occupancy costs; reduce building leases and maximize use of city-owned buildings.
Mayor’s Office of Technology:
• Published city data on the Internet on a weekly basis allowing citizens to examine operations of city government find efficiencies
• Launched an application creation contest, Apps for Metro Chicago that provides technology entrepreneurs with the raw materials to help make the city more efficient.
• Posting performance dashboards for city services on a weekly basis to better ensure accountability and efficiency.
• Decreasing time on FOIA request fulfillment, reducing the cost of processing requests.
• Developing analytics projects to uncover efficiencies throughout city government.
Department of Water Management:
• Implementing new technology to map and schedule repairs, reducing time between jobs and response times.
• Implementing new technology to track job completion that has resulted in job completions being 25 to 78 percent faster than 2010.
• Lining sewers and catch basins with new resin that saves 75 percent on the costs of excavation and replacement and allows for less disruption and noise in residential communities.
I am a 12 year city employee and can tell you from my experience as an employee who has a college degree and management experience, but do not “know the right people” that it is NOT about putting the most qualified and efficient managers to head city departments, it is about putting employees who know the right people in leadership roles, no matter how much that cost the tax payers and how bad the unqualified employees run the departments into huge deficits The Inspector General knows all this goes on, and DOES NOTHING to stop it. All this talk of cutting the budget under control is nothing but “MEDIA HYPE”. With the right leaders in place you could have an efficient and well run government, but that is NOT what the reality is when the cameras get turned off, and you see the gross incompetencies that i see as a city employee EVERYDAY!!
The city could save huge amounts of money by downsizing at least 30% of the six-figure positions in management that are held by employees who are NOT qualified to manage a city department. These employees were put there by who they knew and NOT what they knew. If the Mayor is really serious about a balanced and effiecient budget, then start with the huge amounts of personnel cost that goes to these salaries without regards to quality of work or accountability from these unqualified managers. I wrote the Mayor explaining how to cut this “FAT” OUT OF THE BUDGET, but as todays date havent even heard a response from him or his office. As a twelve year employee who sees the enormous waste EVERYDAY, i think all this talk about a more effecient city government is more SMOKE AND MIRRORS”, something i have seen a lot of in twelve years!!
• Identified $30 million through reductions in operating and administrative costs and has invested that in student learning.
Reality: They cut 200+ student service positions that they have had to call back since no one bothered to read a union contract that called for bumping rights. They’ve since hired college advisors. Those college advisors (and possibly a few more) will be covered under the FY 2012 budget thanks to Chicago residents’ tax dollars. While the individual colleges have advisors, we’re still trying to deal with the tutoring deficiency….
• Hired a full-time Inspector General that has allowed the agency to crack down more aggressively on cases of fraud and abuse.
Reality: The Inspector General of the City of Chicago could not have his/her scope of services expanded to include CCC? NO! Utilizing the City’s Inspector General would likely make for a good case of bringing CCC under the Shakman Agreement. Who in city hall would want that!?!?! CCC was Daley’s political dumping ground, it’s become Rahm’s “homage” to Daley. Nothing will change at CCC beyond an ever bloated district office staff that knows nothing about education and has never actually dealt with a student face to face…
• Proposed a fiscal year 2012 budget that reduces executive management by 10 percent, implemented a hiring freeze and increased procurement efficiencies and increased energy efficiency initiatives.
Reduces “executive management” by 10%? So how many of Ms. Hyman’s vice chancellors, associate vice chancellors, executive directors, district directors are going to be out of a job in the next month or two? None! Not according to CCC’s July Board of Trustees report where 2 associate vice chancellors and a district director were put on the books.
Hiring freeze? Two new associate vice chancellors and a district director, while the individual colleges cannot get deans, associate deans, directors. Which is more important? An associate vice chancellor who tells a campus level dean or director what to do, or the campus-level dean or director who knows what to tell a student to do?
“Procurement efficiencies”…we won’t go there Ms. Hyman! How often has the software you use to text incessantly during important meetings recognizing the accomplishments of CCC students stopped working because the bill hasn’t been paid? I think never. How often has specialized software on the campuses stopped working because renewal fees were not paid after 5 months? Quite frequently!
You wanna reinvent Rahm? Let’s go for it! Here’s an idea, dissolve District 508 and parse the colleges out to their best fit! You are working with Toni Preckwinkle to minimize costs, here is a cost saver! How many millions of dollers could be saved each year without a CCC district office? Think about it!. All I ask is that you not screw students….