A better way to provide services in Charlotte.

• Author: McCrory, Patrick
• Position: Charlotte, NC

In a metropolitan area of 1.14 million people, the City of Charlotte's population is 461,000, reflecting a 10-year increase of 26 percent. The North Carolina city is the center of the country's fifth largest urban region and is the second largest banking/financial center.

Due to functional consolidations over the years, there is little overlap in services offered by Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County. The city's operating and capital budgets total $740 million, while the county's budgets total $898 million. The area's property taxes rank in the lowest quarter of 100 metropolitan areas nationwide. The city has a council-manager form of government.

Charlotte has a number of successes that have resulted from restructuring and reengineering efforts. For example, a stable property tax rate has been maintained for the past 10 years. The city has funded and implemented a five-year, $42 million community safety plan. In 1996, Charlotte voters overwhelmingly approved $98.4 million in street and neighborhood bonds the city was able to pay for without a property tax increase. We have 19 percent fewer city employees per 1,000 population now than in 1980. Finally, we have maintained and/or increased service quality and efficiency.

Charlotte's competition/privatization initiatives have resulted in approximately $180 million in services being contracted with the private sector. In addition, the city is establishing precise costing information for services. We know what it costs, for example, to provide residential garbage collection, change a traffic signal bulb, respond to a fire emergency, and process a request for payment. We're getting a handle on all of our costs, looking at our processes, and determining if there's a better way.

Looking for a better way to provide services has led to significant process improvements. Solid waste crews provide on-time collection services to 99.9 percent of their customers each week. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities won the bid to operate two treatment plants after competing...