COUNTY OF SAN MATEO

Inter-Departmental Correspondence

County Manager’s Office

DATE:

July 13, 2005

BOARD MEETING DATE:

July 26, 2005

SPECIAL NOTICE:

None

VOTE REQUIRED:

None

TO:

Honorable Board of Supervisors

FROM:

John L. Maltbie, County Manager

SUBJECT:

2004-05 Grand Jury Response

Recommendation

Accept this report containing the County’s response to the 2004-05 Grand Jury report: County Information Services Department Focuses on Change.

VISION ALIGNMENT:

Commitment: Responsive, effective and collaborative government.

Goal 20: Government decisions are based on careful consideration of future impact, rather than temporary relief or immediate gain.

This activity contributes to the goal by ensuring that all Grand Jury findings and recommendations are thoroughly reviewed by the appropriate County departments and that, when appropriate, process improvements are made to improve the quality and efficiency of services provided to the public and other agencies.

Discussion

The County is mandated to respond to the Grand Jury within 90 days from the date that reports are filed with the County Clerk and Elected Officials are mandated to respond within 60 days. It is also the County’s policy to provide periodic updates to the Board and the Grand Jury on the progress of past Grand Jury recommendations requiring ongoing or further action. To that end, attached is the County’s response to the Grand Jury’s report on Information Services’ Focuses on Change issued May 5, 2005.

County Information Services Department

Focuses on Change

Findings:

Generally agree with the Civil Grand Jury findings in the report titled “County Information Services Department Focuses on Change” report with one addition to finding #3 – ISD has initiated a Relationship Management program in which every ISD customer department is assigned a Relationship Manager who is responsible for working with department staff to understand the business needs of the department.

Overall, the CIO and ISD are focused on maintaining and improving customer service throughout this department. At the same time, all ISD staff is encouraged to focus on the benefits of approaching IT with a Countywide view.

Recommendation:

The Board of Supervisors should instruct the County Manager and the head of ISD to:

1. Complete, by June 30, 2005, the organization of the Information Technology Management Structure and its shift from independent, departmental systems development to a collaborative model directing the resources available within ISD and the departments.

Response: Concur. The committee members have been identified, have agreed to participate and are scheduled to meet as a committee on August 18, 2005.

2. Continue implementation of the Mainframe Elimination Plan and accelerate it to the extent possible.

Response: Concur. The ability to accelerate the mainframe elimination plan is dependent upon the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS). This will be the largest single application remaining on the County mainframe at the end of Fiscal Year 2005-06. While it is important for the County to eliminate our dependency on this outdated computing environment, it is absolutely crucial to maintain and keep whole the functionality and business process integration currently provided by CJIS. CJIS departments have committed funding for an independent consultant to provide guidance on the best means of achieving this goal. The RFP for this consultant was completed, and the County is in contract negotiations with the elevated bidder.

3. Create a customer satisfaction survey and circulate it annually to assist in the evaluation of performance on a non-project specific basis.

Response: Concur. The ‘San Mateo County Cares’ survey can be expanded to include more questions through the department-specific section of the survey. Ensuring these surveys are provided to management of customer departments will allow ISD to stay focused on providing services that the County needs and to foresee upcoming needs.