Supervisors to Vote on Hiring Consultant for County Plan

The Board of Supervisors will decide Tuesday whether to spend $80,000 on a consultant to help develop a far-reaching government restructuring plan unveiled earlier this week by Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier.

The restructuring plan calls for the county, as well as local cities and special districts, to reassess how best to provide public services and to consolidate some government entities.

Mittermeier said she would also like to reduce county administrative costs and contract out more government tasks to the private sector.

In the proposed restructuring, a definitive plan would be developed over the next year and then submitted to the state legislature and other governing bodies for approval in mid-1997.

Mittermeier will ask the board Tuesday to hire the Diamond Group to “help develop a foundation on which to build an organized and methodical approach to restructuring and consolidating County services,” according to a report released Friday.

The county used the consultant last year to help craft the bankruptcy settlement plan.

Principal members of the Diamond Group would receive an hourly rate of $125.

Also on Tuesday, the board will consider a proposal to allocate an additional $1 million to the county’s trial courts system, which faces a threatened shutdown in mid-May, largely because of bankruptcy-related cutbacks.

If the allocation is approved, the courts will still need about $19 million to make it through June 30, the end of the fiscal year. Last month, the board gave the courts an unbudgeted $5 million. Officials hope the state will fill the remaining $19-million funding shortage.