Mittermeier Unveils Plan to Shrink O.C. Government

Saying that dramatic steps are required to cut costs and improve efficiency in the wake of the Orange County bankruptcy, Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier on Wednesday unveiled a plan that would dismantle two huge county agencies, shift more responsibility to her office and possibly result in layoffs.

The proposal, the first phase of a two-year government restructuring program, would parcel out to other departments some of the work now done by the Environmental Management and General Services agencies, while creating five new assistant CEO positions to help Mittermeier handle the greater duties that would be assumed by her office.

Allowing individual departments to handle maintenance, purchasing and other tasks now performed by the GSA would cut bureaucratic red tape, require fewer employees and pave the way for greater privatization efforts, Mittermeier said.

“This flattens out the organization so we get more dollars going directly to programs” and services, she said. “Layers of government bureaucracy are being eliminated to cut the costs of delivering the services, not cutting services.”

Mittermeier said she has yet to determine how much money the county would save under the plan. Layoffs among the 2,000 workers employed by GSA and EMA might be required if lower staffing levels can’t be achieved through attrition, she said, although she declined to speculate on the number of workers who might be affected.

“We don’t want to have people out there sweating it out over their jobs,” she said. But “when push comes to shove, the end result is going to mean less jobs” at both the management and staff levels.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to consider the recommendations at a special board meeting this morning--less than 24 hours after Mittermeier made them public. Supervisors on Wednesday reacted favorably to her proposal, saying reorganization was the next logical step after last week’s emergence from bankruptcy.

“We have a window of opportunity now with the bankruptcy over to do real government restructuring,” said Supervisor William G. Steiner, who called the plan the most sweeping county reorganization proposal in at least a decade.

“This is very similar to what we are seeing in the private sector,” Steiner added. “I’m not looking for a shift in the bureaucracy, but real structural changes.”

County workers--who saw more than 500 colleagues laid off last year in the wake of the bankruptcy--are concerned but not altogether surprised that more cuts are possible, said Frank Eley, president of the Orange County Employees Assn.

“The bankruptcy is over, but now we have to pay for it,” Eley said, alluding to the $800 million in bonds the county must repay over the next 30 years as part of its bankruptcy recovery plan. “We know this is just the beginning.”

Both Mittermeier and some supervisors said they saw no problem with considering the changes so soon after the recommendations were made public.

“This is an internal reorganization. The public is not going to suddenly feel the effects of this,” said Mittermeier, adding that future restructuring proposals that more directly affect the public will be the subject of more extensive public review.

But some community activists--and even some volunteers working with the county on reform ideas--expressed concern over the scheduling of the board vote.

“However meritorious Mittermeier’s proposal is, the speed at which it has been proposed and would be acted upon is amazing,” said William Mitchell, vice chairman of a citizens committee appointed by supervisors to study the way local government operates.

“Here is a county that rarely makes any moves toward restructuring in any way whatsoever,” he added. “Now, they are moving quicker than people running out of a burning building.”

Carole Walters, a longtime county critic and president of the Orange Taxpayers Assn., was more blunt in her criticism.

“They are going behind the people’s back,” she said. “They don’t want to give the people any time to find out about this proposal and ask questions about spending public money. They just want to push it through.”

To Walters and other antitax activists, fast action underscores concerns about centralizing more power in the hands of a chief executive who is not elected by the public.

They noted that voters overwhelmingly rejected a county charter proposal on the March ballot that would have given the CEO more powers. “This plan goes against what the people voted for,” Walters said.

But some business leaders and government reformers advocate having a strong CEO to run day-to-day county operations in much the same way a corporate president or city manager does.

The Board of Supervisors created the CEO job last year in response to criticism that the county needed a strong manager in the wake of the bankruptcy, which stemmed from a $1.64-billion loss attributed to former Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron’s risky investment practices.

But Mittermeier said Wednesday that under the current structure, her office’s oversight of county departments is largely limited to approving budgets and agenda items. Under her newly proposed structure, the CEO would have more direct control over most county departments, with fewer layers between top management and rank-and-file workers.

“We are now the focal point of the oversight,” she said. “I hope what happens out of this is more timely, complete and accurate information for the board.”

The five assistant CEOs would each have specific responsibilities: finance, public affairs, strategic affairs and planning, human resources, and information and technology. The jobs should be filled within the next few months.

In addition to those posts, the CEO’s office would grow to include purchasing and real estate managers and the Human Resources Department.

Two new, independent departments--Public Works and Planning and Development--would be formed to take over some functions now handled by the EMA. The county library system and the registrar of voters, now in the GSA, would also become separate departments.

Mittermeier believes the county would enjoy “significant savings” by breaking up the GSA, which provides maintenance, purchasing and facilities services to other parts of the county bureaucracy.

Under the present structure, a county department in need of a plumber or other maintenance professional must hire and pay the GSA to perform the task, no matter how frequently the work needs to be done.

“Even if the plumber is there 100% of the time, you have to use the GSA,” Mittermeier said.

Transferring those duties to individual departments would give them “the flexibility to contract out and deal with those responsibilities in the most efficient way,” she said. “They don’t have to go to another agency.”

Over the next year, Mittermeier said she hopes to expand her restructuring plan to other parts of county government as well as cities and special districts. She indicated that the county might consider giving up responsibility for some unincorporated islands, but would remain a provider of regional planning, public safety, aviation, health and social services.

The release of Mittermeier’s proposal comes a few days before the release of findings by the citizens committee formed more than a year ago to take a comprehensive look at the way county government operates.

Mitchell, the vice chairman, said the panel’s ideas will focus more on restructuring among the different branches of local government than on simply the EMA and GSA.

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The Plan

The Board of Supervisors this morning will consider a reorganization plan that county CEO Jan Mittermeier says will cut costs and make government more efficient. Here are the highlights:

* Eliminate the Environmental Management and General Services agencies, which employ more than 2,000 county workers and have a combined budget of more than $100 million.

* Allow individual departments to handle maintenance, purchasing and other internal functions now carried out by GSA.

* Establish a Public Works Department and Planning and Development Department to perform some of the functions now done by EMA.

* Create five assistant CEOs to help Mittermeier oversee personnel, public affairs, strategic affairs, finance and technology.

* Create a Finance Cabinet headed by a new chief financial officer.

Source: County of Orange