SUPERVISOR'S COLUMN FOR APRIL 2008
Good Government Practices From Performance Based Budgeting to Lean/Six Sigma

Since I have held the pleasure of being your representative – as both a Town Councilman and as Supervisor – I have strived to ensure that the Town engages in good government practices. We have made, and continue to make, many changes to improve how we deliver services to our stakeholders. These changes ranged from how we handle Town finances to how we deliver services.

When I first became a Councilman, before the Enron scandal, we separated the accounting from auditing functions. This may seem like a simple decision in hindsight, but it was something that prior Town Boards did not do. As a result of this initial decision, we began to turn the Town into a more entrepreneurial public organization. We began focusing on best methods as advocated by the "Reinventing Government" movement.

Last year, more than ever before, we began focusing more on performance measurements. We truly began looking at metrics to show how effectively we delivered services to our stakeholders. This year, we are taking it to the next level by basing budgetary decisions on these measurements. As we prepare to create the Town's performance based budget, we are asking ourselves, "Are we effectively and conservatively using our resources for the common good?"

We have also taken the initiative of being actively involved with the County. Like Fort Wayne, Indiana, Erie County is undertaking Lean/Six Sigma. We recently participated in a presentation of Lean/Six Sigma by Erie County's Six Sigma Director Al Hammonds. Councilman Joseph Weiss, Town Attorney Steven Bengart, Town Engineer Joseph Latona, and I attended along with representatives from approximately 17 other municipalities. One of the concerns regarding the County's Lean/Six Sigma initiative has been how the press has portrayed it as bringing more efficiency to the County. It is much more than that.

When you deal with just efficiency, you sometimes lose sight of the larger picture. The phenomenon is like a scene from Joseph Heller's Catch-22, where a severely wounded soldier was lying in a hospital bed with a tube dripping clear fluid into him and another tube going away from his body also dripping clear fluid. Upon viewing this scene, a thought was why don't you just eliminate the middle man and have the fluid keep going. That is a case of being efficient at the loss of being effective.

Fortunately, the County's Lean/Six Sigma focuses on overall system effectiveness. In the private sector, companies that follow "Lean Thinking" have reported employee involvement increases of 70% to 95% and annual savings per employee of $1,200 to $3,500. I have asked the County to make a Lean/Six Sigma presentation to the Town of Clarence Department Heads so we too can begin our own Lean/Six Sigma initiative.

As a nation, we know that we are going through tough financial times. We need to find ways to meet our constituents' needs more effectively. Hopefully, through programs such as performance based budgeting, benchmarking (internally and externally), and Lean/Six Sigma, we can be even more effective.