 |
 |
|---|
Shared Services |
Given the current economic climate, local, state and federal legislators have recently begun a constant drumbeat to motivate municipal officials to evaluate Shared Services as a way to help municipalities cut costs in their communities’ services, handle their increasing budget crises and begin to address runaway property taxes.
Shared Services is the identification of redundant services, inter- and intra-municipality, in which it is recognized that a thorough understanding of what each municipal department and/or school system is doing, and at what cost, can lead to the consolidation of services within one community or among several communities, usually with like demographics. The services that can be shared include a long list ranging from services provided by Departments of Public Works, to purchasing and supply-chain management, payroll, IT, all the way to the ultimate (and in many cases politically sensitive) sharing of police, fire, judicial and health services.
The idea of shared services is not a new idea. It has, of course, been utilized for years within the for-profit community, but has just begun to gain traction in the United States in municipal government, school systems and nonprofit organizations. Increasingly, governments at all levels in the tri-state region have been under pressure from taxpayers to look for ways to keep costs down in order to balance their budgets without raising taxes.
NESC has developed special expertise in helping local governments, particularly in New Jersey, improve efficiency and lower costs through the sharing of services. NESC offers local government organizations access to NESC professionals who are experienced in evaluating opportunities for the sharing of services and in developing strategies to transform these opportunities into realities. Among recent Shared Services projects:
|
