| Summary of Engagement
May 2005 – January 2006
The members of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors (BOS) requested PSG and its partner, the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), to conduct a review of administrative and information technology services in the County.
PSG assisted Sacramento County Administrative Services in their efforts to identify best practices and benchmarks to improve the efficiency of the delivery of county services while continuing to meet the business needs of the County and its agencies and departments. In addition, PSG was called upon to measure customer satisfaction measures, determine appropriate service levels from those organizations best-suited to deliver those services; and, to obtain recommendations for changes and improvements to services and practices where changes and improvements were deemed necessary.
PSG made specific recommendations to the County regarding short and long term improvements, estimates of their costs and savings, and an outline of how to carry out the changes. The recommendations addressed:
- Service management strategy in the context of all of county government
- Overlap and duplication
- Where the services should be delivered from, including appropriate degree of centralization and decentralization
- Legal issues and system integrity control
- How costs should be allocated and services paid for
- Appropriate staffing levels and assignments
- Ongoing systems to monitor costs and quality of services
- Cost savings projections, investments needed and their projected return on investment
- Proposed service goals and indicators of success for the new system
- Outline of an Action Plan for implementing the strategy to move from the old to new system
Following receipt of PSG’s recommendations, the County’s Project Oversight Team agreed to implement sixteen out of the total of 25 recommendations as proposed, and to progress with seven additional recommendations with modifications. The Project Oversight Team concluded that PSG’s work had identified some opportunities for improvement and streamlining notwithstanding the fact that Sacramento County’s costs for services were found to be generally consistent with those of similar California counties.
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