Capitalizing on Collaboration How Shared Services are Saving Local Government Budgets

8/8/2019 Capitalizing on Collaboration How Shared Services are Saving Local Government Budgets

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www.digitalcommunities.com

Capitalizing on CollaborationHow Shared Services are Saving Local Government Budgets

By Todd Sander, Director of the Digital Communities program, with the assistance of

the Digital Infrastructure Task Force


2/11

Economists have declared the Great

Recession dead, that, in fact, it ended

in the summer of 2009. Newspaper col-

umnists and bloggers sprang on the story

with headlines teeming with sarcasm

and ridiculed the announcement by the

private nonprot National Bureau ofEconomic Research. The incredulous

The Recession Is Over. Yeah, Right ran

in a Washington Post blog. The San Ber-

nardino Sun was skeptical: Recession

over! Are you ready for some euphoria?

Others were snarkier: Thank Goodness

the Government Cured the Recession.

Whatever the headline, the message

was clear: American citizens are not

feeling more condent about the nations

economic plight. It is easy to see why;

the scene remains bleak across thecountry and the national unemployment

rate is still hovering near 10 percent.

It is a tough time to be in the public

service business. Many communities are

facing the same harsh realities as their

constituents and may continue to

struggle with strained budgets for years

to come. A survey jointly conducted in

mid-2010 by the National League of

Cities, the United States Conference of

Mayors and the National Association of

Counties found that, from 2010 through2012, local governments are expected

to lose nearly 500,000 jobs. Specic

examples show cities like Central Falls

R.I., which has a decit thats 42 percen

of its budget and the city of Denver tha

is looking for creative ways to tackle a

$100 million decit.

There is a silver lining, though i

may be hard to see. The Center fo

Digital Governments paper, Life Afte

Regaining Your Balance, Surviving

the Reset and (Re)Building a Govern-

ment that Works, noted that in moving

forward from the recession the publics

work is likely to be done differently. The

differently alluded to in the paper refers

to a more collaborative type of govern

ment where jurisdictions nd strength

in numbers and a more efcient way

of governing through shared services

approaches. Bryan Sivak, chief technology ofcer of Washington, D.C.

believes cities dont just need anothe

cool software project. What we need is

a way to share what we have with othe

cities, and for them to be able to share

what they build with us. Big changes

have to start somewhere and greater

policy-neutral, technical collaboration

seems like a good place to start.

Capitalizing on Collaboration:How Shared Services are Saving Local Government Budgets

Introduction

What we need is a way to share what we havewith other cities, and for them to be able to sharewhat they build with us. Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Ofcer, Washington, D.C.


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This collaborative theme is the theme

Ill highlight for Life After, said National

Chief Technology Ofcer Aneesh Chopra.

In almost every major domain, weregoing to nd ourselves with a much more

dramatic productivity imperative than we

face today because the long-term demand

curve for public services likely will exceed

our long-term revenue curve, at least as

its currently seen through the federal,

state and local ecosystem.

Chopra seems to be on to something.

Difculty can often spawn creativity andin this case it seems extreme difculty

has helped jump-start collaborative cre-

ativity in the form of local agencies and

jurisdictions battling buckling budgets

by sharing applications and services in a

build it once and everybody use it often

approach. (See Civic Commons sideba

for more information.)

Local government leaders are realizing

that, not only do other cities and counties

share the same challenges in providing

increasing amounts of services to constituents during tough economic times, bu

they are providing the same services and

require the same applications and software

to get the job done. Agency leaders within

cities and counties are nding themselves

Shared Services or Bust

You can go after the Cadillac solution together. Ken Price, Information Services Director, Littleton, Colo.

The Civic CommonsThe newly formed Civic Commons group is an organization

that aims to empower governments to share technology for thepublic good. Civic Commons is the brainchild of the nonprotsCode for America, a Teach for America-inspired program forthe technology-minded, and OpenPlans, a group focused oncivic engagement and open source government software.The organizations teamed up with Washington, D.C., ChiefTechnology Ofcer Bryan Sivak to create Civic Commons essentially a repository of open civic code for governments toaccess. We consistently heard exactly the same thing wereall working on the same projects, Sivak said. So they decidedto create a place where these shared projects can be viewedand discussed the Commons.

A main section of the Commons is the civic stack, a sharedbody of software and protocols for civic entities, built on openstandards. Currently included in the stack are iPhone applications like Citizen Reports, an app for reporting and requestingservice calls regarding city infrastructure, contributed by Portland, Ore. Also there is an App Store from Washington, D.C.,where people can download or submit applications that use government data things like parking meter locations,emergency information and historic data. The group has U.S. Chief Information Ofcer Vivek Kundra on board; he hasapproved providing the Federal IT Dashboard to the stack.

Jennifer Pahlka, executive director of Code for America, described Civic Commons as a way to help governments sharesoftware they have developed, and thereby reduce IT costs, foster collaboration and spur innovation.


4/11

in the same situation other agenciesshare their plight of reduced budgets

and staff with larger responsibilities and

increased workloads.

There is really no local government

department that is unable to benet from

a shared environment. Ken Price, infor-

mation services director for the city of

Littleton, Colo., points to public safety,

roads and bridges, parks, libraries and

museums, among others, that can have

technological components often costly that are ripe for sharing. For example,

most police departments utilize computer-

aided dispatch programs and a records

management system. Every city that has

a law enforcement agency will have to

have the same technology infrastructure

in place, Price said. Some cities can

afford to have their own systems, but

some cant. But if they can band together

and go after technology solutions, then

they might be better able to afford them.

Some agencies may be able to afford

a system, but not the one that really ts

their needs. Shared services can be the

answer in this situation as well. Price

says, It may not be that they dont have

the ability to afford the system at all, but

the type of system needed may be out of

a single citys budget, he added. You can

go after the Cadillac solution together.

E-mail for All

While nearly every agency and local

government can benet from shared

services and applications, some may be

more conducive to sharing than others

or it may be easier to get stakeholder

approval to partner on certain systems

or applications.

E-mail is one application that just

makes sense to share and Fort Collins,

Colo., is wasting no time in ensuring its

departments and agencies start banding

together by housing the citys e-mail

services in one place: the local Poudre

School District. Through an intergov-

ernmental agreement, after a one-time

transition fee of about $170,000, the

city will pay the district $20 per seat,

per year to maintain e-mail and upgrade

to a Microsoft Exchange system for

more than 1,800 city employees, said

Fort Collins CIO Tom Vosburg. Were

contracting with them to be our e-mail

provider instead of doing it in-house,

Vosburg said. And were going to save

around $55,000 a year doing that.

There are no losers when it comes

to sharing services. The Poudre School

District now receives approximately

$32,000 a year in new revenue that

helps diffuse the xed overhead costsrelated to operating the e-mail system.

With the inux of funds, the hosting

organization is able to invest money

beyond overhead costs back into the

system for upgrades, etc., on their own

terms, not by a vendors schedule.

Getting the Job Done

Applications that assist government

employees in conducting their work

can also be shared across agencie

and jurisdictions. These technolog

solutions may save the agency mone

in the long run by increasing efcien

cies and allowing employees to be mor

productive, but with budget constraint

agencies may not be able to afford th

upfront costs.

In Minnesota, the Local Governmen

Information Systems (LOGIS) conso

tium has recently rolled out a Ticke

Writer application in police squad car

and in booking rooms. LOGIS describe

the Ticket Writer as having the abilit

to capture query return data automat

cally, guide manual data entr y, print th

citation in the squad car and transm

the data to the records managemen

system and the courts. LOGIS report

that this entire process helps save tim

and money and reduces errors due tredundant entry.

Enterprise Systems Beyond

the Enterprise

While overarching systems like ente

prise resource planning have mad

operations easier for service delivery an

new ERP systems combine essentia

business operations including softwar

for accounts receivable and payable


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purchasing, inventory management, and

human resources under one umbrella,

these systems can be expensive. Fortu-

nately, they can be effectively shared as

well, and the cost burden can be distributed

among multiple agencies instead of falling

onto one cash-strapped department.

E-mail can be a solid starting point for

shared services initiatives, but jurisdic-

tions can also collaborate on services like

payroll and administrative management. In

Kent County, Mich., the Intermediate School

District has begun a shared services venturewhere the ve school districts in the northern

part of the county share payroll and accounts

payable services, among otherprograms. Asmany as 20 other districts may opt to join

this group in 2011. Kent Swinson, superin-

tendent of Sparta one of the ve districts

participating says that he expects Sparta

will save at least $75,000 in sharing payroll

and accounts payable services alone as it

moves to the new plan.

While sharing systems among two

or more governments is advantageous,

even greater benets may be realized via

government utilization of shared public

information technology hosting services.

Often, geographic proximity can encourage

jurisdictions to share. Counties in Colorados

San Luis Valley were recently confronted

with the news that their property assess-

ment management software was going to

become increasingly expensive through

an outside vendor, so the counties came

together with a sharing plan. Pueblo Countynow hosts the property assessment man-

agement for assessor ofces, property

taxation management for treasurer ofces as

well as geographic information service (GIS)

warehousing.

When cities and counties come

together, they can have access to the same

services, and save costs that can be redi-

rected elsewhere. In San Luis Valley, the

funds that would have been paid in fees to

the vendor now go to Pueblo to offset the

costs required to run the expanded service

Pueblo County was able to implement the

program within its existing budget, so no

new funding for hardware was needed

At the same time, the countys costs have

decreased by 14 percent and may decrease

up to 25 percent.

Government leaders are not the only

ones encouraged by the prospects

Members of the private sector are excited

about the possibilities as well, as sharing

allows governments to take advantage othe efciencies of technologies they may

not otherwise be able to afford, including

Software as a Service (SaaS).

Governments always play a leadership

role driving innovation in IT and this is

certainly the case with the public sectors

growing adoption of shared services and

also SaaS, or Software as a Service, said

Kevin Albrecht, government solutions

manager at Perceptive Software. One


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Behind every innovative idea stands

the technology to make it work. Har-

nessing the cloud is important for local

governments as they begin pushing

forward in sharing services. Shared

infrastructure in the cloud either

public or private is gaining traction in

many jurisdictions because it allows the

spreading of xed costs among several

participants.

When Gopal Khanna, CIO for the

state of Minnesota, announced the rst-

ever statewide cloud initiative he said,

Rethinking the way we manage our

digital infrastructure centrally, to sav

locally across all units of governmen

is a crucial part of the solution. Th

private sector has utilized technologica

advancements like cloud computing t

realize operational efciencies for som

time now. Government must follow suit

Making it Possible

LOGISIn Minnesota, the mission of Local Government In-formation Systems (LOGIS), a consortium of localgovernment units, is to facilitate the latest leading-edge, effective and adaptable public sector technol-ogy solutions through the sharing of ideas, risks,and resources in a member-driven environment.

Departments across the board are involved in thisalliance, making it easy for constituents of theregion to access government services. LOGIS, aquasi-government agency and nonprot coalition, iscontrolled by its members with a board of directorscomposed of one representative from each agency.All funding decisions are controlled by the membersthrough an annual budget and work plan, and byaction of an executive committee.

LOGIS applications include permits and inspection,equipment management, code enforcement, andpayroll and human resources.

well-understood aspect of SaaS is thatgovernments and their partners can

truly maximize the benets of mission-

critical applications like ERPs, case

management systems, and enterprise

content management solutions to create

new efciencies.

Governments always play a leadership roledriving innovation in IT and this is certainlythe case with the public sectors growingadoption of shared services and also SaaS, orSoftware as a Service.Kevin Albrecht, Government Solutions Manager at Perceptive Software


7/11

Members of the private sector whohave seen the benets of the cloud agree.

By consolidating and applying the right

technologies in the cloud, organizations

can simplify the management of architec-

ture to enable more focus on the business

applications. This will help organizations

spend more time building relationships and

partnership frameworks, said Bethann

Pepoli, chief technology ofcer for EMCs

State & Local Government Practice.

Open source technology is also at theheart of sharing services and as open

source becomes more of a mainstreampractice it also assists counties, cities and

districts in coming to a collective agreement

that sharing services is indeed an option.

Open source software, by its very

nature, is created and designed to be

shared, said John Punzak, senior national

sales director of State & Local Government

and Education for Red Hat. For example,

the city of Raleigh recently implemented

a new open source Web portal that saved

the city a lot of money while providingexpanded services to citizens.

Whatever the technology, looking tobest practices and examples of shared

services that have had a success

ful outcome is a good starting point fo

local governments who want to adopt a

similar model or buy into an existing orga

nization. After establishing what systems

and services are the most conducive fo

sharing, a plan needs to be put in place

for a jurisdiction to take advantage of al

of the benets shared services can bring

Well explore some places to get star ted inour next section.

Fort Collins and Littleton, Colo., are

part of the early crew setting the stage for

shared services in the United States with

their involvement in the larger consor-

tium in Colorado, the Government Shared

Services Council (GSSC). The GSSC is astanding subcommittee of the Colorado

Government Association of Informa-

tion Technology, or CGAIT. The GSSC

is becoming well-known for its shared

services initiatives but it didnt happen

overnight.

Fort Collins CIO Tom Vosburg, a

member of the GSSC, pointed to a number

of shared services initiatives that inspiredthe GSSC, including a regional consor-

tium of cities in the northwest Denver

metro area including Boulder that

formed around a wide-area wireless

network initiative. While he described this

as a different sort of business model, i

was a good example of cities partnering

and forming a new entity to collaborate

on the acquisition of technology and themanagement of a Wi-Fi network.

People understood the potential o

joining together and establishing an appro-

priate governance structure to aggregate

strength and accomplish things they could

not do individually, Vosburg said.

For the last few years, the GSSC has

been facilitating different work groups to

develop shared services and Vosburg says

they are continuing to research differen

By consolidating and applying the right technologies in the cloud,organizations can simplify the management of architecture to enable morefocus on the business applications. This will help organizations spend moretime building relationships and partnership frameworks. Bethann Pepoli, Chief Technology Ofcer for EMCs State & Local Government Practice

People understood the potential of joining togetherand establishing an appropriate governance structureto aggregate strength and accomplish things theycould not do individually. Tom Vosburg, CIO, Fort Collins, Colo.

Getting Started: Planning for Success


8/11

regions. In many areas across the U.S.however, the GSSC model is still quite a

new idea and its up to local advocates

to spearhead a shared services project

to get things moving.

In Washtenaw County, Mich., hometo Ann Arbor and surrounding areas,

Kristin Judge, the countys commis-

sioner, took on the role of organizer

and pulled together the seven member

counties of the Southeast MichiganCouncil of Governments (SEMCOG

to discuss a shared services model.

wanted to get a commissioner or two

from each county and the IT directo

eCityGov AllianceThe Puget Sound region of Washington State serves as asterling example of the benets to sharing Web services

across jurisdictions. In 2001, nine area cities formed theeCityGov Alliance, an agency created to pool resources fromeach government body and more easily provide Web-basedservices to constituents.

Smaller government jurisdictions that once lacked the ca-pabilities to supply quality online services have found as-sistance through the backing of bigger agencies to bridgethe digital divide and help deliver on good government. Thishas eliminated redundant services while allowing membersto retain full policy authority.

Within the Alliance, the cost of this support is based on the

population of the given city member. But no matter the loca-tion of the constituent, each citizen or business has the op-portunity to benet equally from the information provided.

The average citizen looking to obtain a building permit orbuy or lease commercial property, for example, is often metwith obstacles due to the wide range of zoning laws. Butthe Alliance has helped constituents avoid sifting througha mess of bureaucratic confusion by providing a uniedsource for a variety of service-specic portals.

The portal, MyBuildingPermit.com, is described as a cen-tralized location for obtaining and monitoring permits, as

well as providing checklists for the purpose of safe andproper building. It is one-stop shopping as contractors canpull and receive multiple over-the-counter permits from 15jurisdictions with a single online payment, said Toni Cra-mer, chair of the eCityGov Alliance Operations Board andchief information ofcer of the City of Bellevue, Wash.

MBP.com saves the contractors time and money by elimi-nating multiple trips to each city hall to pull permits andreduces costly call backs due to differing code interpreta-tions, said Cramer. (So far) in 2010, 71 percent of the cityof Bellevue OTC permits were issued through MBP.com.

Another portal, MyParksAndRecreation.com, allows visi-tors to search the parks, trails and facilities provided by themember cities. As to feedback from park users, Cramer de-scribes a recent instance where a local mother of two youngchildren called MyParksandRecreation.com an invaluableresource in terms of convenience and time savings. Sheexplained that MPR.com makes it easy to nd the mostconvenient day camps in cities between where she livesand works, Cramer said. The alternative would be to useseveral different sources to nd the same information.

These services go beyond the nine partner cities that found-ed the Alliance. Forty-six participating agencies covering

1.4 million citizens across ve counties are now represent-ed and able to access these portal services.

Collaboration takes time, Cramer adds. The heavy liftingassociated with any shared service project comes down togetting staff onboard and breaking down old process silos.

We are all doing the same things, with the same goalsbut each city and county has established different adminis-trative processes and policies. These differences can driveconstituent customers crazy by sucking up time and drivingup the cost and complexity of compliance.


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from each county in a room, Judge said.We all do similar things. Everyone has

a tax roll. We all do assessing. We all

do dog licensing. We all run a jail and a

court system. The county members of

SEMCOG agreed.

Everybody came to the table willingly,

ready to work and ready to nd ways to

save money, Judge said. So were creating

this database of what we all have, so that

when someone is doing something new

and needs software, they can just go to thislocal database and say, Oakland County

already has that. Why dont we just lease it

from them? Then we dont have to go pay

this open market price and we can share.

The opportunity to reuse and extend

infrastructure technology and share gov-

ernment specic applications is important,

but the current scal crisis may also leadto further improvements. Paul Christman,

vice president of State and Local Gov-

ernments & Education Sales at Quest

Software, encourages communities to

continue making changes to the business

side of managing technology.

State and local governments should

more aggressively band together in a con-

sortium of business to reap the rewards

of strategic sourcing and drive out inef-

cient purchasing and contracting, saidChristman. We have seen states such as

Virginia and Michigan consolidate purchas-

ing contracts over the last few years. This

horizontal consolidation across state

agencies should be expanded to vertical

consolidation with other local jurisdic-

tions. For example, Washtenaw County

may have an opportunity to go even furtheand aggressively integrate their purchasin

with the City of Ann Arbor and Universit

of Michigan as well as the state.

Unfortunately, the reaction to an

adoption of existing consortium buyin

vehicles in many places around th

country has been lukewarm at best

Some previous attempts at coopera

tive purchasing may have been seen a

threatening the self-interests of a single

jurisdictions contracting and purchasinorganization. Christman says that resis

tance may now be able to be outweighed

and overcome by the economic necessity

of acquisition and administrative cos

reductions that can be achieved through

common contracts that encompas

several jurisdictions.

While in totality the economic problems

of local governments are immense, areas

that are willing to change failing processes

and embrace creative solutions are ndingnew paths to success.

The sooner local governments team up

with their neighbors, the quicker they will

rise out of economic debt and ever present

budget decits. The obvious question

is: Why cut program spending when

resources and costs can be shared across

district and county lines?

Still, some skeptics see the current

interest in closer collaboration and sharing

as a temporary necessity with a return to

business as usual likely to come back

once revenues start to increase again.

This is denitely not a passing fad, says

Bethann Pepoli of EMC. It will take a

number of years to get the economy back

on track and cost savings measures will

continue to be important. In addition,

data sharing and emergency communi

cations become more critical every day

Data standards are essential for sharing

information. Infrastructure consolidation

and application priorities which include a

scalable, secure and agile infrastructure

as well as information repositories tha

enable more focus on application inno-

In Closing

While in totality the economic problems of localgovernments are immense, areas that are willing

to change failing processes and embrace creativesolutions are nding new paths to success.


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1 Russell Nichols. Fort Collins, Colo., Pays School District to Manage E-Mail Services, Government Technologys Public CIO.

http://www.govtech.com/pcio/Fort-Collins-Colo-Pays-School-District.html?page=1

2 The LOGIS Blog. http://thelogisblog.wordpress.com/

3 Jeff Cunningham. Kent ISD districts to move to share accounting, technology services, MLive.com.

http://www.mlive.com/northwestadvance/index.ssf/2010/07/kent _ isd _ districts _ move _ to _ sha.html

4 Cloud Computing: Pueblo County Shared Services Partnership.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Cloud+computing%3A+pueblo+county+shared+services+partnership-a0232177918

5 http://www.state.mn.us/mn/externalDocs/OET/State _ of _ Minnesota _ Signs _ Historic _ Cloud _ Computing _ Agreement _

with _ M _ 092710090511 _ MN%20BPOS%20Announcement%20Release%209%2027%20FINAL.pdf

Endnotes

If you would like more information about any of the program examples discussed in this paper or the Digital

Communities program contact: Todd Sander | [email protected]

vation and less time on managing theoperations are areas where we are espe-

cially committed to working as partner

with cross boundary government

agencies as one customer to ensure a

simple government transformation.

The models are out there, and with

greater emphasis being placed on

Web-based application development,

the time and cost needed to put govern-

ment sharing into action is minimal. As

evidenced by the previous examples,

these services can take effect across

a number of jurisdictions and a tre-mendous variety of departments, from

parks and recreation to school systems

to property management.

Even so, that does not mean that

a more collaborative approach to

government is inevitable. It will come

only as the result of courage and

intention. Many government agencies

are increasingly facing the stark reality

of having fewer staff, fewer resources

and just as much if not more

work to do.

Some communities still have nocreated an environment that even

discusses collaboration, let alone

pursues it. But there is cause fo

hope: The U.S. is the land of innova

tive leaders and workers. It is these

individuals who will pursue and make

possible collaborative governmen

opportunities. Success will come from

those who are open to new ideas and

solutions. Historically, that openness

has been the hallmark of the public

sector IT professional.


11/11

The Center for Digital Government and Government Technology would like to thankthe Digital Communities Digital Infrastructure Task Force members for their supportand assistance in the creation of this report with special recognition to the followingtask force members for their contributions.

2010 e.Republic, Inc. All rights reserved.

100 Blue Ravine Road

Folsom, CA 95630

916.932.1300 phone

916.932.1470 faxwww.digitalcommunities

IndustryMembers:

Andy Pitman Microsoft Industry Business Development Manager

Ken Price Littleton, Colo., Information Services Director

Tom Vosburg Fort Collins, Colo., Chief Information Ofcer

Kevin Albrecht Perceptive Software Government Solutions Manager

Bethann Pepoli EMC State and Local Government Practice Chief Technology Ofcer

John Punzak Red Hat Senior National Sales Director of State and Local Government and Education

Kristin Judge Washtenaw County, Mich., County Commissioner

Paul Christman Quest Software Vice President of State and Local Governments & Education Sales

Toni Cramer eCityGov Alliance Operations Board Chair and city of Bellevue, Wash., CIO

Paula Hoppe iSYS, LLC Director of Business Development

Capitalizing on Collaboration How Shared Services are Saving Local Government Budgets

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