By Len Rifkind
Guest op-ed column
Posted: 01/18/2011 02:34:00 AM PST
ACCORDING to a Marin County Civil Grand Jury Report, there are 130 governmental entities in Marin that operate at a cost of $5,422 for each and every resident of our county.
"The Marin County 130" consists of the county government, its Planning Commission, and 57 county advisory boards, 11 municipalities, 19 school districts, one community college district, 33 special districts and seven special-purpose districts.
The challenge now becomes which services are residents willing to pay for and can those services be delivered with equal or greater levels of service for less cost than the present fractured arrangement.
All locally elected officials recognize a new paradigm is required to reorganize the delivery of governmental services in a time of economic challenge that will likely last a decade.
The primary obstruction to making local government more efficient is, of course, the sacred cow of "local control." While I am not advocating a single county-wide local government of all services, I am strongly urging a consolidation of overlapping and duplicative services.
The exact number consolidated is not important, but rather achieving operational efficiency that remains responsive to local concerns.
For example, each of the 11 municipalities in Marin has a finance department, providing bookkeeping and accounting functions similarly subject to the same legal requirements. Why not have a single municipal accounting department staffed with top-flight people whose cost is shared equitably by the 11 municipalities?
Law enforcement and fire protection also present significant opportunities for savings. Consolidation can actually provide residents with better-trained, more-experienced responders who have the opportunity to specialize.
Larkspur and Corte Madera have operated as a consolidated police authority since 1980, and it is a model of success.
Here's how to begin the consolidation process:
• First, elected or appointed officials of the "Marin County 130" need to direct that appropriate operational and fiscal audits are conducted with the idea that maintaining or enhancing services to residents is paramount, not slavish adherence to often times arbitrary local geographic boundaries.
Such shared audit efforts are already occurring, for example, with the Marin County Council of Mayors and City Councilmembers Ad Hoc Committee on Pension and Other Post Employment Benefits Reform, whose purpose is determine through independent third-party analysis the amounts of each municipality's unfunded pension liabilities.
Certainly unfunded pension liabilities nationwide and in Marin threaten to swamp the ability of governmental entities in the near future to function and to maintain services.
• Second, once viable areas of service consolidation are identified, elected officials must achieve consensus on how to implement audit recommendations with the focus remaining on maintaining services. This is when the true test of leadership will occur as there will be tremendous political pressure to maintain the status quo of our present fiefdoms.
Again, I do not advocate a single, large, one-size-fits-all solution, but rather for strategic implementation of consolidation of services where it makes the most fiscal and operational sense.
For example, I think residents are more passionate about preserving local planning control but perhaps not so much about administration, public works, building and recreation departments. For actual consolidation of entities, first responders and school districts present substantial opportunities.
Unfortunately, there is really a short window to proceed before residents will experience a significant drop-off in services that will reduce our collective quality of life. Municipal bankruptcies are on the rise nationwide, as recently occurred in Vallejo. We can expect little or no assistance from the state.
If we want to maintain the level of services to which we in Marin are accustomed, then we need to get to work right now to reorganize our 130 governmental agencies into a more efficient form. Residents of Marin deserve no less.
Larkspur City Councilman Len Rifkind is a lawyer with a practice in Marin.
http://www.marinij.com/opinion/ci_17121919
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