Metro Pulse/Insights/Government Efficiency

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by Joe Sullivan

Efficiency seems to be the watchword in Knox County government these days. Per the recommendations of a beribboned volunteer Efficiency Panel, a $350,000 performance audit of the school system is underway, and County Commission is close to establishing an Internal Audit Department that's intended to serve as a watchdog for all the county's many officialdoms. Beyond that, County Executive Tommy Schumpert is nearing a recommendation to extend the purview of the Houston-based consulting firm that's scrutinizing the school system to encompass all other areas of county government as well.

But there's ample room for skepticism as to how much will come of all this, not to mention a number of other recommendations of the Efficiency Panel that seem destined to gather dust. However well qualified the Houston firm (McConnell, Jones, Lanier & Murphy) may be for evaluating school systems, it's hard to imagine the same firm being well credentialed for making judgments about everything from the Sheriff's Department and the Law Director's office to the Election Commission and the Register of Deeds. Even if it were, each of these fiefdoms have their own elected chiefs who are granted a lot of autonomy by the state constitution. While the schools and the sheriff remain beholden to County Commission for their funding, the body doesn't even have purse-string control over so-called fee offices such as the County Clerk, Register of Deeds and Trustee, which generate all the revenue they need to spend as they see fit.

None of the fiefdoms are overtly thumbing their nose at Schumpert's initiative, which is backed by County Commission Chairman Leo Cooper. County Clerk Mike Padgett's response is typical: "If they can show me I'm doing something wrong, I'll welcome that." But he goes on to say that, "I think we're doing things right."

Schumpert, for his part, says, "I don't see having someone conduct a performance review or audit as a matter of looking for things [that are] wrong but rather looking for ways to do things better." As for MJLM's capabilities for conducting an across-the-board review, he says, "They are a general contractor that sometimes uses subcontractors with particular expertise. That's part of what we're talking with them about, along with outlines of what they'd be looking at and costs."

It's problematic whether any more will come from a paid consultant's work than appears to be resulting from the advice the county got for free from its Efficiency Panel. But to the extent the panel's recommendations are any guide, the prospects don't seem promising. Only two of nine recommendations contained in a 53-page report issued last spring by that eight-member body have so far gained any traction: namely, an internal auditor and the external school audit that many county commissioners had been seeking anyhow.

Perhaps because a volunteer consultant on human resource management, John Sergent, represented the panel's only source of professional support, nearly half of its report is consumed with making the case for the creation of a centralized Human Resource Management Division covering all arms of county government. The case starts with a harsh indictment of present services as, "limited in scope and...clerical rather than professional...which results in: cost and staff inefficiencies; high turnover; inconsistent hiring standards; inequities in pay; lower productivity; lack of career focus; and related problems and issues."

But Schumpert isn't much enamored of either the criticisms or the recommended new division. "I feel our human resources department has really come a long way in the past two years," he asserts. Its manager, Phyllis Severance, is the wife of former State Rep. Charles Severance who also happens to have been a Central High School teammate of Schumpert's. "If we had the schools and the sheriff and the fee offices under it, a new division might make more sense, but they probably need to be kept separate," he opines.

To which Sergent, who spent 30 years in human relations at the DOE complex in Oak Ridge, responds, "They've got their wagons circled when they ought to be very receptive to ways to improve things." According to Sergent, neither Severance nor any of her higher-ups have sought his input on any of his myriad recommendations for strengthening the county's personnel policies and procedures.

The Efficiency Panel is also getting stiffed on its recommendation that, "all budgets, operating expenses and capitol [sic] expenditures of each constitutional office be subject to review and approval of the County Commission." In this case, the panel's quest was Quixotic to begin with. The fee offices aren't about to relinquish their state-mandated control over their budgetary turf. Nor can the sheriff be expected to give up his statutorily set discretion over the use of drug bust money that permitted him to build a firing range in East Knox County without County Commission approval. "To change these state laws is almost impossible," says Schumpert.

Turf protection, in this case on the part of County Commission, also stands in the way of yet another Efficiency Panel recommendation. The panel proposed establishment of a Capital Improvement Authority that would have to consider "all matters requiring expenditures of over $10,000 for building or renovation" before County Commission could act on them. Although the proposed new authority's role is ill defined, it would seem to impinge on commission's authority over outlays for building schools, jails and libraries and so forth. But as commission made evident in its November approval of a $4 million renovation of Halls Elementary School, it isn't about to cede its authority in such matters or even to accede to the one governmental entity that already has expertise in this area: namely, the Public Building Authority.

The school board, whose inept management of school construction projects led it to seek out PBA oversight several years ago as a CYA maneuver, has seemingly regained commission's blessings to revert to its politicized ways. These start with an architect selection process that doesn't pass the smell test and extend to construction management capabilities that just plain stink. By going along with the school board's exclusion of the PBA from the Halls renovation project, commission has made a mockery of efficiency where school construction is concerned.

While more audits may beget yet more recommendations, one gets the sense that the more things are proposed for change, the more they are likely to stay the same.