NEWPORT BEACH : City Record-Keeping System Criticized

A review of the city’s computerized record-keeping system, which costs $2 million a year, shows that the equipment is not being used to capacity and that the city lacks the leadership to standardize and maintain computers in different departments.

The City Council heard that and other criticisms Monday from two hired consultants with the Warner Group, a Woodland Hills-based management consulting firm.

The council requested the $55,000 review last August. Consultants interviewed 65 data processing managers and employees and scrutinized the city’s equipment and methods to reach their conclusions.

They found that data processing workers often are using systems in one department that are not compatible with systems in another, and that some employees are undertrained. Each department tackles its own equipment problems and there is not a central person responsible for the way data is gathered and stored citywide, they concluded.

The consultants, Randy King and Todd Walike, recommended hiring five new employees--two for the Police Department and three for other city functions--for data management.

But the council was skeptical about the benefits of the Warner plan, which includes a onetime $600,000 outlay for new equipment and $274,000 a year for support services.

When Councilman Thomas C. Edwards asked for an estimate of city savings that would result from the upgrade, primarily by eliminating duplication of data entry, Walike said he could not give a dollar amount.

The council received and filed the inch-thick report, which City Manager Kevin J. Murphy said would be used as a yardstick for efforts to improve efficiency.