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Thanks to Executive Services Corps
Posted 9-29-2003
This month, I am focusing on
news you likely will not read about in the county's most widely distributed
daily newspaper. For more than three years, the county has been involved in
a highly beneficial, working relationship with the Executive Services Corps
of Western Pennsylvania. This organization worked with a number of county
departments to improve the use of information technology to increase
productivity and decrease operating expenses.
The Executive Services Corps
is a cadre of retired corporate executives who have expertise in a variety
of disciplines. The executives with which we worked ran information
technology departments at large corporations or had expertise in using
certain software. The only charge for their services was a small
administrative fee that amounted to about $9,500 for three and a half years
worth of work. Comparable work by information technology consultants would
have certainly gone into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The improvements they helped
implement within Westmoreland County government include a new, automated
personnel time and attendance system and a call-off system. Through these
projects, we estimate the county was able to eliminate or reassign four
positions (two in human resources and two in payroll), in addition to other
operational benefits.
Subsequently, Executive
Service Corps worked with our financial administration department to develop
a position control system that electronically keeps employee records
current. It enhances the budgeting process for payroll and allows the salary
board to have timely, accurate information about the impact of any proposed
actions on the county budget.
Another area that increased
its efficiency due to our work with the Executive Service Corps is the
county's purchasing department. The primary activity in this department was
the implementation of a paperless requisition system. No longer is our
purchasing department inundated with multiple copies of requisitions. The
electronic requisition system frees other county departments from having to
physically travel to purchasing to submit requisitions and gave us an
on-line perpetual inventory that generates automatic reorders. In addition,
the physical inventory process is simpler and budgets are checked for
sufficient funds. Commodity tracking enables better analysis for compliance
with bid/quote laws. The development of the on-line catalog eliminates
multiple phone calls from departments and the need for searching paper
catalogs for items.
The final project on which we
worked with the Executive Service Corps was implementing a QuickBooks
software system for tracking financial transactions in the sheriff's office.
Rather than the time-consuming, manual recording of each financial
transaction, QuickBooks allows the staff to enter information electronically
and monitor balances at the touch of a button. It also allows the financial
activities of the sheriff's office to be more easily audited.
These projects were all tasks
that, perhaps, the county had the in-house capability to complete. But the
Executive Service Corps professionals were instrumental in planning and
organizing the work and facilitating meetings between county departments to
keep the projects moving. In addition to the Corps' technical expertise,
their experience in large corporate environments gave them the team-building
and organizational skills necessary to build successful working groups.
The experience was mutually
beneficial in a number of ways. Not only did we get quality work at
extremely low costs, we now have systems in place that improve the
efficiency of a number of vital operations. The retired professionals were
able to feel self-worth by contributing to important government functions.
They also got an inside look at the broad range of talented professionals
employed by Westmoreland County and a better understanding of the variety of
challenges we face on a daily basis that go virtually unreported because
they might not make juicy headlines. Best of all, we have identified a
number of further opportunities to improve county operations with the
assistance of the Executive Service Corps. We look forward to continuing to
work with them. |
