High Performance Government Network Council Discussion
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 12/3/08 @ 10:46 am - Filed Under City Council, Featured
Last night city council once again discussed the topic of the High Performance Government Network and what they are actually providing the city. Readers will likely remember that the HPGN is an organization comprised exclusively of former Mayor Richard’s direct reports that was given a 3-year, $95k/year contract in the waning hours of the Richard administration.
The council brought the topic back to the table because of the recent State Board of Accounts audit that claimed the contract should have been brought before council and also claimed that the HPGN employees were in violation of the city’s ethics code. The city’s HR director took some time to explain the contract (I missed the first few minutes of this) including the fact that HPGN will put in roughly 600 hours on the contract which, for those of you scoring at home, means we are paying them $158/hour.
The city did put forward one employee to speak on behalf of the organization:
City Purchasing Director Jim Howard said the network “was absolutely essential as a facilitator” and has no doubt that it has helped save the city money.
Of course no data was actually presented to show how they are saving us money. Perhaps this will be forthcoming in their annual report due in January. The city has also been getting monthly reports so why weren’t those shared with council?
The more important matter to me is why this deal was done in such a shady manner. Councilman Mitch Harper brought up the ethical violations discussed by the State Board of Accounts and former city attorney Tim Manges came forward to answer those questions. He said the administration asked him to come before council because he was never involved in any of the HPGN discussions - I guess that makes him “independent” in the eyes of the city.
It should come as no surprise that Manges claims there was absolutely no ethical violations whatsoever and he should know because he helped draft the ethics rules. But to say that giving a contract to an organization that is to be completely staffed by current administration employees doesn’t violate any ethical rules is laughable. And if that’s truly his position then I’d say he drafted a piss-poor ethics rule.
Sure in some lawyerly way Manges might be correct, but the whole thing stinks and everybody knows it. There will always be a loophole to exploit but that’s certainly not the essence of good and open government and I would hope that our current community leaders are above these kind of shady operations.
And just as an aside, if you were only reading one local newspaper this morning you might not even realize this discussion took place at city council since they chose not to even cover it…
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20 Responses to “High Performance Government Network Council Discussion”
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This contract was a joke in the first place.
The more I hear about it the less I like it.
Mike Sylvester
High Performance Government Network appears to sell services that no one needs such as helping set up Lean Six Sigma concepts, normally used, (albeit ineffectively) in manufacturing plants, into government environs. The results are always employee time-wasting, with no forward benefits.
Even their website has a stench about it. My mind says, “I wouldn’t trust these guys any further than I could throw them,” King Richard made his fortune this way, so he rewarded his buds.
http://www.hpgnetwork.com/
Why will Six Sigma NEVER work for a city? Simple… Every four or so years a city changes a Mayor and most of the appointed heads of departments. Many times these people are clueless or lack any managment skills for the department they are appointed. For them to come into a department that even has Six Sigma training their lack of understanding of such will quickly defeat such.
Look at Pat Roller…. City Council has been asking for months for a couple of reports that she seems not to be able to provide. Council members and she both know that such reports are, or quickly generated, made available. These reports are management reports for the City Council yet the controller elects to defeat the purpose of Six Sigma by not providing such requested reports.
Frankly it is a feel good project within the city and also provide some ex city employees with an income.
Six Sigma concepts have saved millions for the city government.
That is a fact.
End of story.
“Six Sigma concepts” are the same generic quality control process steps that have been around forever.
In fact I think a legitimate argument could be made that six sigma is not only ineffective in government but potentially harmful as well - maybe I’ll make such an argument in a future post…
Jeff,
The Richard Administration documented the savings attained through Six Sigma.
Keep in mind, some of these saving are NOT in dollars, but in efficiency- for instance- filling potholes within a few hours as opposed to DAYS with the old system.
The truth is, you are just so opposed to HPG that you cannot see the forest for the trees.
You should visit this page:
http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1014&Itemid=1158
The same can be said for your direction Kevin.
I’m still confused about the contract length. Maybe I missed it in here. Is it 3 years from the date of from the start date or 3 years including one year with just a few days in it? What is the date that it ends in 2010?
My understanding is that they pay the fee in advance. So the contract payment in 2007 was for 2008.
The contract should expire in late December of 2010.
With all due respect Mr. Knuth….it seems a but self-serving to author a report highlighting the “savings & benefits” of a program that was implimented by the author’s own administration, meanwhile securing a contract to essentially extend your government paycheck for another 3 years. The private market would never accept such misconduct, which is the standard that government officials should be held to in my opinion.
I am certain that the six sigma efforts had some positive impact on our city’s government, but not to the extend that Graham would have us believe, and certainly did not create a lasting effect worth of the price we paid.
It seems the people who are former city employees that now work for/as HPG got really smart AFTER they left the City. Why weren’t these policies put into place when the people were employed to do the jobs in the first place?
The reason people are confused about when the contract started/expires is because it was reported in the media that the first payment was for the year already past. Perhaps that was reported wrong, but that is what was reported.
The reason the contract stinks is obvious. It was put in place at the very last minute, at a price just under one that would require others to review it and approve it, for the buddies of the guy who made it happen. He’s the same guy who bought up all the property for Richard Square, I’m sorry, for Harrison Square, without telling anyone it was happening. That’s the kind of crap that gives politics a bad smell, and also gets the citizens in the kind of trouble they will be in when the hotel and the condos don’t happen and they are stuck paying for the really nice new ballpark and parking garage.
Kevin Knuth …
“Savings” implies monetary savings …why would anyone want to waste taxpayer dollars by “saving’ something else?
We would all be curious to read King Richard’s documented savings list. Please point us to it.
Kevin,
Those that have known me for a while know that I’ve been anti-six sigma well before the HPGN scheme was ginned up…
Mike,
Originally the first $95k, paid in late December 2007, was a “membership fee” for joining the HPGN organization.
Only recently has the city claimed that the 2007 payment was for 2008 services. But according to the city’s new position we should receive services through 2010 although the final payment will be in December 2009.
Six Sigma works in the private sector for many many reasons. There are other programs that afford the same type of results.
The one major thing is to develop good procedures/processes in running a department. It avoids reinventing the mouse trap. Also everyone is on the same page.
As equipment or duties change the procedures/processes are changed.
If the City continues to need the consulting firm to continue teaching then there is something wrong within the city government. By now they should have enough “black belts” who can teach the various classes. Also new employees would come on board and would learn the processes from those who already work with them daily.
I fully support well written processes/procedures but once they are done they done. The users, who have already been trained, know the process for updating and changing the processes/procedures.
As for savings they shrink quickly from the first ones. I am still trying to get any idea how a city budget can shrink by millions and say it is all from using Six Sigma.
As for the pot hole filling being reduced to hours from days is also interesting. All it would have taken is a decent PC and a database with some data that could be sorta so crews where not hop scotching all over the city. If the crews improved that much what are they now doing with their time or have we cut the head count of the Street Department.
I can’t wait to hear the report of the savings the city claims it has gained…. Should be interesting!!!!
Gadfly:
http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1014&Itemid=1158
Kevin - In your response to gadfly, you refered to a document that included “Lean Project Overviews”. Viewing these it is clear that these are “before the activity” listings NOT reviews of what actually resulted. In other words, “this is the marvelous savings we are going to realize!” This is typical of the FALSE data that is often the result of trying to use programs that are not understood correctly - all too typical of most “intellectual” exercises attempted by our former mayor - both as mayor and in his prior attempts at businesses.
As an addendum to my previous comment - see under Lean Project Overview - City Engineering: Land Acquisition: Right of Way Engineering
In the box labeled : “Savings”, it says:
“The project will yield considerable soft savings to the community, which is difficult to quantify.” In other words, “We have NO IDEA if this will result in ANY savings at all!”
Also, in same list, click on “Customer Service: “Credit off “Recheck” work order process” - Under savings it lists what they planned to save -NOT the result of the savings! This is how our city employees operate - “Just measure my results on what we say we are going to do - NEVER on what we actually accomplish!” This fuzzy thinking is what has given us the boondoggles of the recent past - Harrison Square - Kitty Hawk - The re-do of the re-do of Calhoun Street traffic flow - The still 60% tax-supported Grand Wayne Center - The “still costing the taxpayers” Parking Garages (despite Pat Roller’s comments to the contrary), et al
[...] in the most recent HPGN city council discussion we found out that the city wasn’t simply paying for membership dues but that the $95k we paid [...]