MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN SAVINGS

Dec 20th, 2002

Mobile City Employees are saving the City millions of dollars! How? Through ideas like extending oil changes in City owned vehicles, drilling a well to provide water for the City’s nursery and standardizing the City’s alarm systems.

These ideas and many others suggested by City Workers have saved the City $2.35-million dollars since 1995 when the Employee Suggestion Program began. According to Mobile Mayor Mike Dow, “Employees are often the first to notice waste and inefficiency, and by rewarding them for their ideas we are making progress toward our vision of a government that works better and costs less.”

The suggestion program allows employees to submit their ideas to Total Quality Management Coordinator, George Krietemeyer who assigns a team to investigate the ideas. If the team decides an idea can work and save the City money, the employee who submitted it will receive a cash award.

Cash awards of $25.00-$2,500 are based on tangible net savings or net increase in revenue. Employees will receive 10% of the estimated first year’s net savings or net increase in revenue. When the monetary value of a suggestion cannot be determined, the award will be assigned a value of $25.00-$300.00.

Krietemeyer says he receives about 50 suggestions every year. When the program began in 1995 he got about 100 every year. “We’ve done the easy ones, now it’s harder to come up with really good cost saving ideas.”

But that hasn’t deterred employees who want to help save the city money. Paul Clarke who works in the City’s MIS department suggested replacing hard wire telephone circuits with wireless building to building bridges. The program underway now is projected to save the City $75,000 per year.

City Clerk Glenda Morgan wanted to know why the City was paying for indigent burial costs. After investigating her idea the City transferred those burial costs to the County where they belonged-- saving the City $36,000 every year.

Garage Employee Richard Aikens said the City could save a lot of money simply by changing the octane level of the gasoline the City purchases from 89 to 87. Since the City consumes more than 470,000 gallons of gasoline each year, Richard’s idea saved taxpayers $47,000 per year.

And no company can operate without proper telephone services. But, Telecommunications employee Ben Durant did more than negotiate great service. He also worked out discounts saving $25,000 per year.

These are just some of the examples of how City Employees have helped reduce the costs of running government. Since its inception the Employee Suggestion Program has accounted for a cumulative total of more than $9-million in cost reductions and increased revenues.

Some of the ideas are simple—others are more complex. But, they all demonstrate Mobile City Employees’ desire to better serve the taxpayers—our customers.

Contact: Gina Gregory
For more information
208-7590