San Bernardino County’s Mission: to Deliver Services With a Smile

Can beleaguered San Bernardino become the best-run county in the nation?

That is the lofty goal of a plan unveiled Tuesday by the county’s new top administrator and approved by the Board of Supervisors -- the first step in a process that could lead to privatizing some county operations.

The plan, presented by County Administrative Officer Wally Hill, provoked snickers and rolling eyes among some of the 50 or so residents and county employees who attended the supervisors’ meeting, reflecting the steepness of the challenge.

Over the last decade, nearly half a dozen of the county’s top administrators have been convicted or indicted on corruption charges. One county supervisor is now on trial on charges that he accepted free vacations to Las Vegas in exchange for his support for a billboard project.

Last year, in a survey of 40 of the nation’s largest counties, San Bernardino County received a C- for government performance. Only two counties received lower grades.

The survey by Syracuse University and Governing magazine said San Bernardino County was plagued by a high employee turnover rate, deteriorating roads, heavy financial debts and poor strategic planning.

The survey’s authors suggested the corruption scandals diverted the attention of government leaders away from serving the public.

Still, Hill insisted his plan would work just as it worked to improve operations at Yuma County, where he was the top administrator before coming to San Bernardino County in April.

“It worked there, but will it work here?” he asked. “I’m quite confident it will.”

Under Hill’s plan, the county will begin this year by taking surveys of residents and those who do business with county agencies to gauge what works. The plan also calls on the county to establish a process to compare San Bernardino County’s services with those of comparably sized counties. In addition, the county plans to train employees to emphasize “customer satisfaction.”

Each year the county will repeat the surveys to measure improvement. The plan also calls for “managed competition,” in which agencies or departments may have to compete with companies to perform government services.

This drew criticism from the leader of a county employees union.

Experienced employees could be replaced by minimum-wage workers if Hill’s plan results in privatization of some departments, said Chris Prato, general manager of the San Bernardino Public Employees Assn. Rather than motivate county workers, “managed competition” is more likely to demoralize them, he said.

After the meeting, Hill said that his plan would allow companies to bid to take over only new services and those that the surveys determine are being neglected by county employees.

He said he could not speculate on which services could be taken over by private firms.

Supervisor Fred Aguiar said the plan was “yet another major step in the right direction.”

Supervisor Dennis Hansberger said he was “delighted that we have a program before us to be the best we can be.” He added that he would like the county to quickly begin training employees to improve their “customer service” skills.

The idea of training government employees to treat residents like customers is not new.

In 1996, then Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs championed the idea of making Los Angeles the “Nordstrom of city governments.”

His idea called for employee training, customer-satisfaction surveys, comment cards at government offices, a toll-free hotline for complaints and rewards for employees who exemplify good “customer relations.”

However, much of the plan was never implemented.