Reader Says Outsourcing is not always the answer
Unfortunately there have been other experiments with shared services, even regionalization, as far as cost it really does’nt work out.
Long Island is a prime example their property taxes are higher than ours and their services lag way behind us, bigger isn’t always more efficient . Don’t get roped in by the initial purchase cost savings, once your are into maintenance fee’s and usage disputes all benefits are out the window. The adjoining municipalities could actually lose out in the overall picture.
Ridgewood had an agreement with Midland Park for gasoline and that ended, Ridgewood and Glen Rock had a “joint meeting” to enable” Central Dispatch” Midland Park is out and Glen Rock and Ridgewood pick up the slack. There has been change at central to make it appear cost efficient but the last time I could get documentation of village cost expenditure it was in the area of 750,000.00 dollars. That was when Chief Corcoran was the boss at rpd I would hate to see what the numbers are now especially after someone who knows their way around a budget looks at them. So don’t think outsourcing is always the answer.
$750,000.00 dollars for Central Dispatch today is way low. More like double that.
Really thats insane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
It isn’t about getting “bigger”. Shared services and outsourcing are about taking advantage of “best practices” and eliminating wasteful/redundant overhead costs. Several steps are necessary:
1) Identify where wasteful costs exist
2) Evaluate whether efficiencies can be achieved through a cooperative agreement with other municipalities and quantify the specific efficiencies/savings and how they will be achieved
3) Structure and implement an agreement that actually realizes those efficiencies/savings
4) Once implemented, the process needs to be monitored to ensure that the savings continue to be achieved
When these agreements fail it is usually because they were entered into without quantifying the efficiency savings, properly structuring the agreement or monitoring them to ensure that the savings are being achieved. Shared services are not always the answer. However, when done properly in the right areas, this approach can be extremely effective. As with anything, it requires attentioin to detail.
The details of the Long Island experience are not clear. What we need is a careful review of the services that can be outsourced for the Village of Ridgewood. If personnel costs are the biggest budget problem then we should give outsourcing a god look.
it’s all bull shit. it look’s good for the first year or two, then they get you.
We won’t know until we try.
We have and it hasn’t worked ie: the agreement with mp over gas, Central dispatch, the tub grinder with glen rock. the failed attempt to split a ladder truck with glen rock some years ago. The Long Island experiance was the mergen of small town pd’s into 1 big county force. Costs sky rocketed response time slowed drasticly and alot of local municipalities ended up paying way higher county taxes. ( I belive they were deemed public safety tax) The Nassau county, and Suffolk county cops are the highest paid in the nation.
“We have (tried shared services) and it hasn’t worked ie: the agreement with mp over gas, Central dispatch, the tub grinder with glen rock. the failed attempt to split a ladder truck with glen rock some years ago…”
Are you kidding?? Sharing a tub grinder or ladder truck??? These are not example of shared services that generate any meaningful savings. These are agreements of convenience.
I don’t know all the details of Central Dispatch. But, from what I understand, this was poorly conceived and has been poorly run from the start. This entity needs to be audited, at least informally, by the Village (not people connected to Central Dispatch) to understand why Ridgewood contributes $600K+ of the $1.6MM annual cost to this service for 13 towns (almost 5 times the theoretical average share of the expenses) and why a handful of employees are being paid $1MM a year and god knows what else in benefits to operate this service. I think Paramus dispatch offered to run this service for Ridgewood a few years ago for less than $100K. If so, Ridgewood’s Central Dispatch seems like a good example of poor oversight and management, not a “model of shared services” as described by Gabbert.