QUESTION 4 In the late 1990's and early 2000's, M County was in flux, with the political majority of the board of county commissioners changing after every two-year election cycle. The community and County staff suffered from rapidly changing priorities after every election. One political majority believed the county government could be all things to all people and should provide many services, no matter the cost; the other believed that there is never a good reason to raise taxes no matter how many services must be cut. Changes in the elected majority were accompanied by swings in political priorities, resulting in drastic changes in the County's budget priorities and decisions. In previous budget cycles, the elected officials and senior managers had sometimes chosen to make across-the-board cuts to all programs when the County needed to reduce its budget. While this is a relatively quick solution, the unintended consequence is that higher priority and better performing services are cut, sometimes more deeply, than lower priority and lower performing services. MN 3/4 BAM7014 ACCOUNTING FOR MANAGERS Continued... 22 AUGUST 2021 Mecklenburg County had also tried other standard budget cutting techniques such as the elimination of vacant positions, with the intention of protecting the jobs of current workers. However, this approach can have the unintended consequence of cutting vital jobs simply because of the timing of the vacancy. For example, one-year M County happened to have several vacant jobs in the customer service section of Tax Collector's Office (OTC), so these jobs were eliminated to balance the budget. However, during a property tax revaluation, the OTC was overwhelmed by the workload and was unable to process tax payments - the very tax payments that were a much- needed source of funding for the cashstrapped County. In retrospect, it was clear that cutting these vital positions simply because they were vacant was a poor strategy. The county administration finally formulated focus areas into 1. Community Health and Safety 2. Social, Education and Economic Opportunities 3. Growth Management and Environment 4. Effective and Efficient Government Required: a. Explain how a performance management system can help the county resolve its problems (7 marks) b. Identify potential objectives, measurements and initiatives for each focus areas (18 marks)