IN YOUR CORNER

Martin County Commissioners have decided to test the waters of public

opinion before proceeding with a referendum extending the 1% sales tax.

They hope to use the tax to fund a number of construction projects which

the commission was told is needed to provide county government with the

space to operate through 2005 and beyond. They will spend $10,000 for a

public opinion poll to gauge the popularity of extending the sales tax;

the approximate cost of bringing this proposal to a referendum vote in

November is $160,000.

Supporting this list of needs for additional government facilities is

data gleaned from a space study report completed in August, 2000, by a

consultant (Saxelbye, Architects, Planners, and Interior Designers of

Jacksonville, Florida). This study cost the taxpayers $51,900.20

Their space study report addressed specific elements such as

courthouses, constitutional offices, emergency operations center,

sheriff administration, community services, emergency services

administration, and county administration in an attempt to answer the

following questions: What can Martin County reasonably expect to be the

space requirements for these organizations in the year 2005 and 2010?

How many people will be employed? How much space will be required for

their tasks? How much space will be required for ancillary functions

such as storage, conference rooms, active files, etc.?

Working with department managers or their designates, the consultants

toured each department to gain fuller understanding of methods and space

requirements. Space standards for each type of job position were

developed and were used as the "basic building block" for this study.

Saxelby's attempts to verify these standards with those of other

counties were essentially unsuccessful, but the few match ups that were

available generally agreed with Martin County's numbers.

Next, the consultants had to forecast growth, a daunting task when

forecasting five years out; it's even more hazardous when contemplating

ten years. Two methods of projecting future staffing needs were

analyzed; one used projections from department heads, and the other

applied the County's average population growth of 2% per year uniformly

to the existing staff of all departments to project staff growth in the

future. In a majority of the cases the higher of these measures was

used as their final projection.

The conclusion of the report is a projection of 1,101 Martin County

personnel by the year 2010, which represents a growth of 265 employees.

In other words, Martin County taxpayers can expect that for every

anticipated newcomer, there will a matching incremental increase in

county employees, plus the ancillary facilities and support structure.

Again, the devil is in the details. This report assumes we have the

leanest, most efficient operation possible. It assumes there will be no

efficiencies from advances in technology that would eliminate some

tasks, or at the very least make them easier to perform, requiring less

personnel. For that matter, it also assumes that no efficiencies will be

gained by combining duplicated functions into central purchasing,

vehicle maintenance, human resources and other departments, or potential

savings from using School Board or IRCC facilities for classrooms and

training. Current private and public economic trends indicate that

basing any long term spending policies on these erroneous assumptions is

a mistake.

Since employee salaries and benefits comprise the majority of the county

budget, a more beneficial approach would have been to authorize a study

to determine how many employees it really takes to perform a specific

job in the most efficient manner. When taxpayers have attained a high

level of confidence that our staffing is efficiently "lean and mean",

they will be more inclined to view current staffing numbers as a valid

basis for future projections on a selective basis.

Another point of view on the topic of studies in general is that, once a

study has been completed and accepted as fact, decisions are reached

that have a very wide, snowballing affect. For example, will this study

be used to justify the need for the projected future employees in much

the same way that fire department employees in St. Lucie County are

absolutely delighted over our latest salary increases here in Martin

County. They are looking forward to the next salary survey, which would

make their salaries adjust upward also.

It is our understanding that the county administrator is going to offer

his purchasing department's services to the Sheriff's Department. This

is something we have long supported, and we feel this is a great

opportunity to save a few taxpayers dollars in salaries and in space

requirements. Hopefully this and other functions can join this national

trend for greater efficiencies.