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Director's Message Oct. 6, 2006
To: All DHS employees From: Bruce Goldberg, Director "There are no strangers here; only friends you haven't yet met."
I spent much of last week learning about new ways to deliver services and discussing a variety of issues with employees and community groups.
Tuesday and Wednesday I was in Tampa, Florida, with a National Governors Association group learning about an intriguing new system Florida is using to work more efficiently and improve customer service for its Children and Families clients. Thursday and Friday I met with staff and community groups in Ontario and Baker City.
Next week I'll share with you what I learned in Florida and discuss some ideas for process improvements, but today I want to talk about my visit to eastern Oregon and address some of the concerns raised by our staff.
Whenever I speak with DHS employees I am struck by how much we all care about doing right by our clients and the public.
It is energizing to see so much concern and enthusiasm in support of our mission. I also see staff who take our values to heart, and who serve the public with integrity, respect and professionalism. Our staff take responsibility and stewardship of resources very seriously.
It is because our employees hold these values to their hearts that I found staff who were concerned with a recent newspaper report that claimed Oregon has more public welfare employees than other states, and implied DHS has more administrative staff than necessary.
We all interpret data in our work every day. It is reported in many different ways and a question can be answered differently depending on how it is asked, or what sources of data are used to develop the answer. That is the case here. It is an apples-to-apples -- apples-to-oranges scenario.
Each state has a different public welfare system. Some use mainly state employees, some use mainly local employees, and others, like Oregon, have a combination of both. In addition, each state varies widely as to how much service they contract out. In order to get a more accurate picture we need to look at data sources that include both state government workers and the many different counties and local government agencies that help us do our work.
We did just that. We went to the U.S. Census data where all these sources are combined to gain a full picture of the situation. We found Oregon -- with 17.76 state, county and local government public welfare workers per 10,000 residents -- is fairly consistent with the national average of 17.11. Our nearest neighbors, Washington and California, have 18.85 and 18.68 respectively. There is no available data on the degree to which governments contract out for services.
On the second point, although administrative staff also can be calculated many different ways, the fact is we have a lean operation. We have consolidated administrative functions across the department to ensure we do not duplicate efforts. As a result, central administrative costs in DHS account for slightly less than 5 percent of total funds. In addition, we need to remember that almost 85 percent of our budget is spent in our communities paying for services provided by doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, disability services providers, local governments and a host of others who deliver valuable services. The remaining 10 percent of our budget goes to the direct services we provide to Oregonians through our child protection workers, vocational rehabilitation counselors, state hospital employees and the many other DHS staff members who provide a variety of valuable direct services throughout the state.
But it's not only about a single number or percentage; it's also about how we organize to do our work and the outcomes we achieve. It's about how we implement new and more administratively efficient processes. In both Ontario and Baker City last week I met dedicated employees working hard to fulfill our mission to help people become independent, healthy and safe. I met staff who serve far higher numbers of clients than national standards suggest is optimal. And, I heard a lot of ideas for ways to improve our processes and become an even more efficient and lean operation.
The most effective organizations are those that continue to implement better and more efficient ways to do their work. That's what we are doing. It's that combination of sincere concern for our clients and the desire to find better ways to do business that makes us successful. I saw that combination in abundance during my visit to eastern Oregon last week. It was wonderful making new friends and I am proud of our entire staff and the work they do from Coos Bay to Ontario, from Portland to Medford...thank you all. To provide feedback email: DHS.Directorsoffice@state.or.us |
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