(A) To institutionalize and strengthen city government's ongoing quest for efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the City of Albuquerque shall develop a policy framework for assessing and selecting the most appropriate means of service delivery for any particular city-provided service, including but not limited to in-house provision, intergovernmental agreements, volunteerism, public-private competition, grants, concessions, and public-private partnerships.
(B) To develop this policy framework, a Task Force on Governmental Efficiency and Results (G.E.A.R.) shall hereby be established which shall be composed of eleven members appointed by the Mayor with the advice and consent of the City Council. The membership of the Task Force shall include one representative from Office of the Mayor/CAO, the City Purchasing Officer, one member of the City Council, one representative from the City Council staff, two representatives from city departments, two representatives from city unions, two representatives from the private sector, and one representative from the non-profit sector.
(C) The Governmental Efficiency and Results Task Force shall be responsible for developing recommendations for a city policy framework on governmental efficiency and cost-effective delivery of services, including a methodology for determining the most appropriate means for delivering a specific service, and then reporting these recommendations to the Mayor and the City Council. These recommendations shall address the following topics:
(1) A competition component shall be included in this policy framework that seeks to engage city departments and employees in competition with private contractors within a public bid process that will provide a mechanism for determining who can best provide services to the City's customers;
(2) A strategic process shall be developed that gives policy makers accurate information with which they can determine which service delivery method or methods will yield the greatest benefits as measured against specific goals and objectives for the particular function;
(3) The city's policy shall be designed so as to ensure an accurate and fair assessment of various methods of delivering services, be it through city departments or the private sector;
(4) Any city policy on service delivery methods shall ensure a level playing field which will neither favor nor penalize any type of competitor submitting proposals in the process, including city departments.
(D) The policy framework shall include a “Competitive Assessment” to determine and improve, if necessary, the competitiveness of the in-house service. This will be accomplished by comparing city operations to best practices in the public and/or private sectors. The policy shall also provide city employees with the opportunity to develop and implement readily achievable efficiency and effectiveness improvements prior to any decision to pursue competitive bid.
(1) The “Competitive Assessment” shall include but not be limited to:
(a) Customer analysis to identify the customers, their needs, and their satisfaction with service;
(b) Evaluation of the missions and goals of a program to ensure that they will be appropriate to a changing environment;
(c) Identification of actual costs for providing the service;
(d) Assessment of current performance measures on efficiency, effectiveness, and customer satisfaction;
(e) Identification of areas for improvement and implementation of improvements to become more competitive.
(2) A sound competitive service delivery model aims to produce the best service at the lowest possible cost. A fair assessment of competitive proposals for alternative service delivery requires accurate cost data for determining whether city service costs are competitive with those in the marketplace. The Competitive Assessment shall develop methodologies for identifying all current costs of providing particular services. An “avoidable cost” methodology shall be utilized to identify any costs which would remain even if the service were to be provided by a private company, and therefore would not be included in any cost proposal submitted by city departments.
(3) A process shall be developed for fairly assessing any service delivery proposals submitted by a city department from the standpoint of promised cost reductions and/or efficiency and productivity gains contained therein.
(4) City policy shall require contractual mechanisms to ensure that performance meets service standards.
(E) As a critical first step in establishing an adequate data bank for such any competitive assessment, the work currently underway by the City of Albuquerque to develop a comprehensive set of performance measures of the city's service programs shall be completed, and in addition, performance measures for contracted services shall be developed.
(F) The framework to foster greater governmental efficiency and cost-effective delivery of services shall ensure the fair and respectful treatment of employees by involving employees and unions throughout its development and implementation. The policy framework shall reflect the commitment of the City Council and the Mayor to employment stability for city employees affected by the implementation of any competition process.
(G) The Governmental Efficiency and Results Task Force shall produce a policy framework recommendations report no later than six months after the appointment of its membership.
(H) The Chief Administrative Officer will assign appropriate city staffs to support the activities and direction of the Governmental Efficiency and Results Task Force.
(I) The City Council budget shall support any consulting services and/or research functions up to an amount of $10,000 in support of this task force.
(Res. 48-1998, approved 5-5-98)