Getting It Right- Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance

7/17/08
In my opinion there is an obvious need within our local governments for a system that provides coordinated, inter-governmental, short and long range facility planning. I feel that this shortfall in a vital management function is costing the taxpayers of Florida and our community, millions of dollars in wasted, excessive, and avoidable, government expenditures.
We are in a situation where we are building, are planning to build, or have already built, several new, expensive government buildings while other, government owned facilities sit idle and decaying. I feel that the new Emergency Operations Center, the new Health Department Building, the planned consolidated County Administration Building, and the JCARC building on Pennsylvania Avenue, could all have been housed in existing space at an overall cost that would have been millions of dollars less.
A prudent, profit motivated business would not build new space while it owned other space that was empty. A company would renovate, restructure, and move into facilities at a minimum of cost to the company. Why can our governments not take the same approach?
The first and foremost reason governments do not emphasize costs, is that there is no profit motive, and reducing costs is generally several steps down the management’s scale of importance. Since cost is not a primary factor, many bureaucratic managers feel they would be remiss by not taking advantage of an opportunity to move into a bright, clean, new, (and expensive) building, instead of moving into a reconditioned, older building. After all, it is only tax money, and that MUST be spent. "If we don’t get it….someone else will", is a prevailing misdirected, philosophy.
Another cause is the narrow minded, internally focused system of management used by many segments of government. Too often, each segment tends to take an "isolationist" attitude in regards to its budget, staff, and properties. What belongs to the City is the property of the City, what belongs to the School System is the property of the School System, and what belongs to the County is the property of the County. No one stops to rationalize the fact it all belongs to the citizens, and is all public property. As a result, each entity is struggling with its own needs, and developing its own solutions……with no one looking at the overall picture for the best solution.
Another contributing element is the manner in which most construction projects are funded. The usual source of funds is State or Federal "grants" administered by parent organizational agencies, or various foundations and programs which have been funded by legislative actions. This is true locally in the cases of the new Emergency Operations Center, the new Health Department Building, and the JCARC building. For some seemingly senseless reason, these grants often specify "new construction", and thus remove consideration of less expensive "renovation" projects. I am not sure whether his shortsightedness is caused by the manner in which the grant applications are written…or if it is due to poor administrative procedures by the bureaucracies and bureaucrats that administer these funds. Many of these grants should allow "renovation" as a consideration for facility needs.
And finally, I believe that much of this wasteful and unnecessary spending on facilities by governments and government agencies is caused by a general disregard of the need for wise and prudent stewardship of tax dollars that should exist as a primary responsibility of any governmental decision maker. Everyone often is guilty of "playing the game" to maximize what can be reaped from the State or Federal government for local use. Since everyone simultaneously plays this foolish game……overspending becomes the norm.
To me, examples of these wasteful practices are very visible in our local area. If we had a cost conscious, coordinated approach to facility planning I feel the following alternatives might have been chosen in preference to expensive, new construction:
• The Emergency Operations Center; my primary choice would have been to recondition the damaged Sykes Building (for under 1 million) and locate this new function there. My second choice would have been to locate this function in one of the buildings at the old high school. Also, I believe this function should be a function within the Sheriff’s department and not a separate agency. Another possible location could have been the upper floor of the Administration building at the Marianna Airport. Instead, the State EOC grant dictated a separate function with a "NEW" building.
• The new Health Department Building; The existing plan will result in the shell of the Sykes Building being completely demolished (which to me is a waste), and a NEW building built on that site at a cost of approximately $12,000,000. Other considerations could have been to use the old Marianna High School facilities, or to build on the property near the county jail facility where the shells of the old Dozier School dormitories are setting empty and decaying. These are shells of buildings that were soundly built and I believe could have been reconditioned into a beautiful complex of public health facilities in a location more convenient to those who will be using this service most often. It is my understanding the grant specified "NEW" construction. And another empty government owned building will soon exist on 5th Avenue in Marianna.
• The JCARC Building; This one million dollar facility was built after the Marianna High School was vacated. The JCARC is still fragmented around town in satellite buildings. In my opinion the old High School would have created a beautiful, efficient campus for this activity and their nursery operations. Instead, a million dollar building was unnecessarily built with grant money that improved their administrative housing, but did not represent the best use of that funding for the overall needs of the JCARC….and the high school continues to decay.
• The County Administration Building; I have already written repeatedly on this subject. The old Wal-Mart building is still available at a slightly higher price….until the new owners begin to find tenants.
• A Recommended Improvement: I strongly encourage the creation of an Inter-government Facility Planning Committee, comprised of representatives of the County and City Governments, The School System, and private citizens. This group would meet as needed to assist in the overall planning and evaluation of facility requirements and fulfillment options for all public functions in the county. The purpose would be to provide the needed cross communications and negotiations between agencies, to widen the perspective of evaluation of available facility options, and to assist in grant application processes.
At the state level, we should encourage our legislators to introduce actions at the State and Federal level that encourage evaluation and use of reconditioned facilities instead of encouraging the more expensive option of new construction.
Do this and you will be "Getting It Right".
Partial Listing of Empty Public Buildings,
July 14, 2008:
• Sykes Building (Damaged but restorable)
• Old Marianna High School – Numerous Buildings
• Alliance Laundry Complex – Numerous Buildings
• Old Work Camp – Near new EOC facility construction site
• Old Dozier Dorms – Near County Jail
• Upper Floor, Airport FBO Admin Building
• Additionally, there are several large privately owned facilities throughout the county that are empty and could be bought for government use at pricing much lower than the cost of new construction.
Rudiments- Odds and Ends Worth Mentioning:
• At last week’s City Commission Meeting in Marianna, the Commissioners approved a request to return some $368,000 in grant funds back to the State for reuse on other projects. The funding originally came from a community development block grant from the Office of Tourism and Economic Development for use on roads at the Family Dollar – Oldcastle Precast Concrete industrial area. Due to the faltering economy, bids apparently were lower than initially projected, thus creating the surplus of funds. I highly commend the Commissioners for showing prudent stewardship of public funds by returning this money back to the state for use in other areas on worthwhile projects. This is much better than destroying the bidding process by wastefully spending the money unnecessarily just because they had it in hand. Good work, Commissioners.
• In other action at that same meeting, after research by City Manager Jim Dean, the Commissioners took action that resulted in savings on the city’s insurance costs of over $11,000 per year. Although Commissioner Donofro voted against the change, the other Commissioners felt the savings justified changing carriers. After all, isn’t that the reason bids are taken? Again, an example of good management action taken by the Marianna City Commission.
Note: The opinions expressed in the column are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hatcher Publications.