OUR VIEW: What is the business plan?

We keep reading and re-reading the 34 goals members of a town subcommittee presented to the Longboat Key Town Commission to be adopted into the town’s vision plan.

There are a lot of good ideas — as there often is when the commission asks for residents and business representatives to participate in the annual Town Commission goals exercise. To wit, some of our favorites in this one:

• “Resolve the town employee pension-plan issues within the next 12 months.”
• “Support an island-wide revitalization effort.”
• “Improve the island’s communication infrastructure” (the unspoken goal: cell towers for better cell service; it’s still lousy).”
• “Continue to work toward cost containment in the budget.”
• “Adopt a long-term, beach-management plan and renourishment program” (the town has them).”
And then there are the items that often have a twist of special-interest influence to them. To wit:
• “Provide for gas lamps and better landscaping on Broadway in the Village.”
• “Purchase property on the north end of Longboat Drive South and Palm Street.”
• “Enhance the school bus stop in the Village with a new bench.”
• “Support continuation of the trolley service on the island.”
• “Encourage the town to implement the development of the Bayfront Park fund and construct a community center at Bayfront Park.”

Many of the suggestions are not so much goals as they are wants. And as is the custom, the Town Commission painstakingly goes down the entire list and prioritizes.

As much as commissioners may squirm at this tedious exercise, it is worthwhile. It keeps them in touch with what’s on the minds of taxpayers. And out of this process, the town administration often is presented with a to-do list the town staff is expected to accomplish over the next 12 months.

This is good for accountability. Town Manager Bruce St. Denis and his staff have a road map.

Yet, in spite of the good this process creates, it often leaves a sense of falling short, of not going far enough, of failing to create any grand vision or mission.

It should go deeper.

For instance, what are the vision and mission for the town in the eyes of the mayor who takes office after each March election? What are the vision and mission of the town in the eyes of the commissioners? What are the vision and mission of the town manager?

What is the business plan?

If you think of the town of Longboat Key as a corporation, which it is — an incorporated municipality, it operates like a business. It has a board of directors (commissioners) responsible to its stockholders (taxpayers) and that board sets the overarching vision, mission, strategy, policies and fiscal benchmarks.
Likewise, it has a chief executive officer who is accountable to these directors for carrying out their wishes; who is to lead and manage the company; and who is to be measured on attaining fiscal targets and operational competence.

But rarely does the commission go into this depth of examination with itself or the town manager.

Now would be as good of a time as any to adopt this approach. Indeed, the sitting commissioners have the talent and appear to be more data driven and business- and benchmark-minded than in previous years. 

Commissioner Phill Younger, for instance, is a recently retired senior executive, engineer and lawyer from Delta Airlines; and Commissioner Jack Duncan is recently retired as a longtime senior executive with U.K.-based Imperial Chemical Industries and later Zaremba Pharmaceuticals — two largescale corporations. With their corporate experience, these two are wired to want to see more measurement, accountability and a clear business plan for the town’s operations. Or take Vice Mayor David Brenner, who served as a managing partner of Arthur Andersen and later finance and commerce director for the city of Philadelphia.

With these three commissioners in the lead, they could be the catalysts for a new way of thinking on the commission and a new way of operating at Town Hall.

More and more governors — Florida Gov. Rick Scott, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and others — are trumpeting the mantra of measuring and accountability in the face of austere budgets.

With the town’s property values expected to decline another 6% for the coming fiscal year, creating at least a $500,000 shortfall in revenues compared to current expenses, and with the town tax rate having risen 26% last fiscal year, this is yet another moment for commissioners to set the stage. Set the stage for a business plan that requires the town manager to produce consistent gains in productivity and expense reduction.

EXCERPTS …
On Israel …
If you missed commentator Charles Krauthammer’s assessment of what President Obama did to Israel recently, track it down online. It’s a masterpiece. One excerpt:

Quoting Obama, Krauthammer wrote: “‘The status quo is unsustainable,’ declared Obama, ‘and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.’”

“Israel too?” wrote Krauthammer. “Exactly what bold steps for peace have the Palestinians taken? Israel made three radically conciliatory offers to establish a Palestinian state, withdrew from Gaza and has been trying to renew negotiations for more than two years. Meanwhile, the Gaza Palestinians have been firing rockets at Israeli towns and villages. And on the West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbs turns down the Olmert offer, walks out of negotiations with Binyamin Netanyahu and now defies the United States by seeking not peace talks but instant statehood — without peace, without recognizing Israel — at the U.N.”

On war …
Author Mark Helprin spelled out in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal how the United States should approach war — great advice for our leaders who have us stuck in Afghanistan:

“When in defense of our essential interest we do go to war, not only must we carefully determine war aims — and thus dictate to the enemy the time, place an nature of battle rather than chasing him into the briar patch of his choosing — but we must accomplish them massively, overwhelmingly, decisively, and, if necessary, ruthlessly … Rapid shocks cost less in lives, ours and their, than wars that drag inconclusively for a decade. We must make our enemies understand at the deepest level of apprehension that if we are attacked, we will be quick and they will be dead.”

THE LESSON FROM LEY 
In the totality of his tenure, Jim Ley performed well as Sarasota County administrator. His resignation last week — or to be more precise, the circumstances that led to his departure — should not forever or indelibly blemish his 14-year record. But the entire saga stands as instructive lesson.

Ley had no direct role — so far as the public knows, and we would be shocked if he did — in the employees who improperly used credit cards, improperly awarded contracts to favored vendors and otherwise unethically executed the county’s purchasing rules.

But viewing the incidents as an outside observer, you can see the transgressions that occurred as examples of what frequently undermines the careers of long-tenured chief executives. Over time, CEOs become comfortable and immune, and so do their boards. The CEOs become complacent in areas where they shouldn’t. Their successes and achievements in other areas pump them up, inadvertently blinding them to weaknesses and sloppiness that eventually do them in.

Then one day the dam breaks. The trouble that was small in the beginning grows, spreads and then bursts. And while the CEO has no direct role in what went wrong, ultimately he must accept responsibility. As the sign on Harry Truman’s desk said: The buck stops here.

This is how it appears with Jim Ley.

To be sure, Ley was smart, calculating and adept at nurturing and working all of his constituencies — his commissioners/bosses/board of directors; the competing special interests of homeowner/taxpayers and developers; and the county employees. Ley was a smooth “player,” and you sensed he thrived and enjoyed his position of power and influence. At the same time, his public persona and behavior was that of an ethical chief executive who lived by the code of doing what’s right and in the best interest of the county’s many constituents. Give him credit, Ley was a capable leader.

During his tenure: The county’s property tax rate fell 25%; the county earned a triple-A bond rating, a rarity. While other cities and counties spent all they took in during the real estate boom, Ley championed setting aside $150 million in reserves for the inevitable economic downturn — a move that softened the nasty recession.

Ley also cites as accomplishments road expansions; expanded emergency services; the addition of a new jail; turning the county from being a huge water consumer with no backup supplies to a water-rich county; helping shepherd through the acquisition of thousands of acres; and the passage of sales-tax extensions to fund county infrastructure. We would also cite Ley’s leadership in making sure Sarasota County was well prepared whenever hurricanes headed our way.

He was a competent manager and CEO. You can’t take that away. Except for the blind spot that did him in. Problems in the county’s purchasing department and systems, we now know, persisted going back to 2007. Ley told his bosses on several occasions that he and his managers instituted changes to correct the problems. We also know now those problems didn’t stop.

It’s easy and understandable for the leader of an organization with a $1 billion budget and 2,000 employees not to be aware of operational issues. There is no way Ley could control the actions of all of the county’s employees.

But the circumstances of his departure provide an explicit lesson — to Ley and every CEO. It’s an oft-repeated lesson in the management of any organization: When a cancer appears, eradicate it. Quickly and thoroughly. Your reputation is at stake.