June 18, 2013 – For over five years, the Local Government Effectiveness and Collaboration Team has worked closely with SEMCOG’s member local governments to implement shared service arrangement that have both reduced cost and, in many cases, also enhanced services. Based on that experience, the following fundamentals have been developed:
- Collaboration process steps
- Concept envisioned for shared/collaborative services
- Task force created
- Proposal developed
- Stakeholder involvement
- Financial/legal analysis
- Go/no go decision
- Implementation
- Business case must make sense
- Cost savings and ideally service improvement
- Avoid automatic cost escalators
- Start-up costs and payback period quantified
- Equitable cost sharing formula – varied views likely
- Value of contributed equipment
- Personnel factors/legacy costs, i.e., pensions, debt
- Know what are you trying to accomplish, with whom
- What existing relationships are in place
- Research SEMCOG AgileGov database for similar case studies
- Neutral facilitator preferred (from SEMCOG), but not to schedule meetings
- Not always a panacea for balancing near term budgets
- Important tool in the toolbox
- Should save 20-40% with future cost increases minimized
- Can also improve services
- Meet or beat the benchmarks or it’s not worth the effort
- Process can be labor intensive
- Use Collaboration Checklist
- “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”
- If significant progress is not evident in 3 months, collaboration is likely doomed!
Contact Dave Boerger at boerger@semcog.org if you need help formulating a potential collaboration arrangement with a neighboring community.
Learn how to navigate fiscal uncertainty by improving efficiency, fostering collaboration, and providing information on right-sizing. Through weekly posts, Dave will discuss legislative developments, best practices, and training opportunities.
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