Council Hires Firm to Conduct Sweeping Audit of City

In an unusual effort to cut expenses and increase efficiency, the Glendale City Council on Tuesday hired a Woodland Hills specialist in government organization to conduct a citywide audit of all departments and map a strategy for fiscal planning.

Despite a tightening budget, council members unanimously agreed to spend $250,000 for the study, considered to be one of the most comprehensive undertaken by a California city.

Officials said they expect the study to result in millions of dollars in savings in Glendale’s operations.

Mayor Larry Zarian, who first proposed the study five years ago, said the cost “is probably the smallest investment that we could make in the future of our city, in the millions that we can save by streamlining, in changing habits, in the way we do business.”

He said: “The whole idea of the audit is to look at the city as the private sector would. We have a $317-million business with 1,500 employees and state-of-the-art equipment. We need to make sure that we are running every department as frugally as possible.”

The audit will evaluate interdepartmental relationships and operations in all of the city’s 16 divisions, said Robert K. McFall, assistant city manager.

It will examine the role of employees, use of equipment, amount of time spent performing tasks and any counterproductive or duplicated procedures.

Although the city has routinely conducted internal audits, officials from the city and the Southern California Assn. of Goverments say the audit is considered to be the largest ever undertaken by a California city.

In the first phase of the study, recommendations for action are expected to be completed by the end of February so that officials can use the findings to formulate next year’s city budget.

A second phase calls for developing long-range strategies, such as planning for capital spending and exploring sources of new revenues.

One aspect of the audit would examine spending to determine areas of waste and possible fraud. Zarian cited the discovery last year, for example, that a Montrose collection agency and other businesses had collected more than $1 million in bogus fees from the city over a three-year period. “An audit would have caught that long ago,” Zarian said.

Howard Goodman, president of the consulting firm, said more government agencies are looking for ways to reorganize their operations, particularly during the last year or so as a result of dwindling revenues in the economic slump. But he said the study to be undertaken by Glendale is unusual in its breadth and scope.

“We have seen only recently, particularly in California, more of an emphasis on rethinking how government provides services--trying to do more with less,” Goodman said.

The Warner Group was selected by a six-member ad hoc committee that was led by Zarian and included representatives of the city staff and civic leaders. The consulting firm, founded in 1980, was considered the most qualified of 14 applicants. Goodman said the firm has about 30 full-time specialists and has conducted organizational studies for 150 to 200 governmental agencies across the nation.

However, not all of the studies have been met with enthusiasm. A reorganizational study completed by the Warner Group two years ago for Kent, Wash., for example, “ran into a political hurdle,” said Laurence A. McCarthy, chief administrator of the fast-growing suburb of 40,000 between Seattle and Tacoma.

He said action on recommendations was postponed after senior citizens, rallied by park department officials, widely protested a proposal to consolidate park operations and its senior citizens’ activities into a new department of human services.

Goodman said the proposed reorganization is an undercurrent in a mayoral election to be held in two weeks.

In contrast, Zarian said Glendale officials have expressed enthusiasm for the study.

“I have not heard anyone talking negatively,” the mayor said. “We are all willing to wait for the results so that we can streamline our operations and run the city like it should be run.”