Views
Opinion column
by Murrel Bland
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, is marking its 25th anniversary by having consultants explain how it can do a better job of governing about 165,000 persons.
I am not opposed to the Unified Government trying to do a better job. However, it is important to respect history in charting the course for the future.
Ashley Hand, the UG’s director of strategic communications, writing in a recent UG newsletter, said the present top-to-bottom study effort has never been done since the city and county governments were unified. That may be the case. However, it is important to examine what happened during the years before consolidation.
In the late 1970s, a volunteer Chamber of Commerce committee of professionals, including an accountant and senior private sector management personnel, did a very extensive study of city government. The committee’s conclusion was that the city could save a considerable amount of money if it had a central personnel director and a central finance director. Both those positions were instituted; considerable savings were realized
In 1981, a 15-member volunteer committee spent a year studying local government here and elsewhere. (I was a member of that committee.) The conclusion was that the city here could save considerable money with a professional city administrator. That came about after an election in 1982.
Consolidation of city and county government came about in 1997 after a volunteer committee studied the situation extensively. There had been various attempts at consolidation dating back to 1937. However, the community approved it in an election in 1997.
Presently groups of paid consultants, the Meriweather Group, Management Partners and the Robert Bobb Group, are making suggestions about how the Unified Government can do a better job. That could cost the UG as much as $118,000. I had considerable problems getting that cost information and finally did receive it with the help of Ashley Hand. Maybe one of the consultants will make a recommendation on how to improve open records requests.
Previous successful efficiency studies have originated and were driven by very responsible and committed volunteers. That is not the case with the present study. A strong volunteer base would have helped assure the study would have been successful. Besides, it would have saved the UG a considerable amount of money.
Murrel Bland is a former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Business West.