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You Are Here : Home / Engage With Us/ UG News / UG Forward Assessment Outlines Changes Needed for Success

UG Forward Assessment Outlines Changes Needed for Success

Published on July 18, 2022

At our last Commission meeting on Thursday, July 14, two consulting teams presented their preliminary assessments findings and recommendations that are part of the UG Forward initiative to reimagine the Unified Government for the next 25 years. During the first quarter of her term, Interim County Administrator Cheryl Harrison-Lee began a process of evaluating the organization as we celebrate our 25th year and support our transition to a permanent administrator in the coming months.

People first.

Gail Meriweather and Jilian Meriweather of the Meriweather Group presented a Human Resources Audit which set out the objectives to examine compliance with established regulations; explore how to better serve management and employees; examine work processes; and establish an "early warning system" to spot problems and identify issues. The expectation is that this presentation is high level and preliminary with the objective of following up on this conversation in the months to come. The consultant identified opportunities to improve the hiring process, including paperwork and data collection, as well as general policies and procedures to strengthen overall management of personnel.

The Meriweather Group recommends that the Unified Government conduct a pay equity analysis and implement a more modern performance management system to help provide feedback to employees, helping them navigate job objectives and standards of performance. The consultant expressed concerns about the quality of service from the department as being unreliable, unresponsive, not always accessible and inconsistent. Equipping the Human Resources Department the staff, policies, processes and technology will help ensure that every single employee, their customers, is well-served.

Realign for better outcomes.

The Unified Government was formed 25 years ago when the public voted to unify Wyandotte County and City of Kansas City, KS governments. The consultant team, Byron Marshall and Scott Meyer, have done an overall assessment of the Unified Government as well as a cursory review of our finance functions as an organization. "You have twenty-five years of experience under your belt as a consolidated government. This is a good time to stand back and look at the organization," said Byron Marshall. "The timing of potential re-alignment is fortuitous with two vacant assistant county administrator positions. Now is your opportunity to realign the organization to its core functions."

The consultant team recommended realigning county administration to better manage the functions of the departments, better balancing responsibilities and creating opportunity for more collaboration in working toward similar outcomes. The Unified Government has proven capable of effective realignment to address community priorities, such as the SOAR program, but this approach needs to be integrated throughout more of our work. Breaking down silos in the organization will help improve efficiency and overall success.

The consultant team also suggested that the Unified Government develop a common management system to help departments manage to the Commission priorities and the strategic goals of the organization. A management system, as defined by the consultant team, is the array of policies and practices used to plan, manage and assess the work of an organization. It includes the full range of processes that a management team uses to operate the government. It is strongly recommended that the Unified Government go through a more extensive strategic planning process to help set the priorities to measure. We were reminded that measuring success provides the opportunity to celebrate success.

Plan for success.

The consultant team noted that there is a lack of clear, measurable goals across the organization and a need for modernized policies and procedures to be more effective. The Unified Government, it was noted, can continue to find efficiencies by examining the opportunities and potential that "unification" brought to the community 25 years ago and set a clear strategy in motion to achieve those goals. The consultants offered a variety of recommendations regarding strategic planning, economic development, communications, information technology, fleet, purchasing and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and quality customer service. Investing in staff and aligning skills to jobs will be a more sustainable approach as the organization will need to make changes over time. However, it was discussed, there is also an urgency for change with structural deficits in the City of Kansas City, Kansas general fund.

"We must take these preliminary findings and work together to address the foundational, systemic issues facing our organization," said Interim County Administrator Harrison-Lee. "We are taking this feedback to our staff next to begin formulating our plan for moving ahead to take the UG Forward."

These consultants have completed their work and are recommending next steps for implementation. The consultant teams will also be sharing their detailed reports which we will post on our website as soon as they are available. To learn more about other ongoing efforts to reimagine the Unified Government, check out UG Forward.