Countywide : Supervisors OK Wastefulness Study

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved spending $10,000 for a college think tank to identify wasteful duplications of services by county and city governments and special districts.

The supervisors voted 4-0 to pay one-third of the cost for a three-month study of all county and local government services to find areas that could be streamlined or contracted out to private business.

“This study is the opening salvo in rethinking how government is structured in California,” said Jim Hodge, executive director of the Orange County chapter of the California League of Cities. The league is providing $10,000 of the study’s $30,000 cost.

Researchers from the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College will gather budget information to determine where local governments are using money wisely and where they are wasting taxpayer dollars through inefficiency and overlap.

Based on that information, a summit of government and business leaders will recommend ways to increase efficiency. For example, cities might be encouraged to contract with county fire and police departments to cut down on bureaucracy, or government agencies might be advised to contract out some services to private businesses.

Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said she believes the study could show that many local governments already are being run efficiently. If that is so, she said, the study still will be useful because it could highlight cities’ money-saving practices for others to imitate.

Five corporations--Pacific Bell, Southern California Edison, Southern California Gas, Fluor Corp. and the Irvine Co.--are splitting the remaining $10,000 cost.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez was absent from the meeting.