| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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Running a city hall is the bread and butter assignment of any mayor. But bringing about deep transformation in the people’s mind, empowering public servants, establishing tough to attain goals, and striving for efficiency without ever loosing the human dimension that must permeate each and every action carried out by any government is going beyond ordinary action, it is innovative.
Also, it might not be true elsewhere – perhaps in towns and cities where a good local administration is well established – but here, quenching corruption, stopping wasteful expenditures and redirecting human resources towards practical results for the community is quite a feat.
This is especially true when the country is facing the worst recession ever and the population is putting more and more stress on the government as if it were an infinitely capable provider.
In fact, amid this historic financial difficulty Brazil is facing and the growing number of responsibilities transferred to municipal governments, in addition to the current economic crisis in the country, achieving effective gains for the population has become very challenging for municipal public managers. The fruits of individual voluntarism, chance, or genius of one or another administrator no longer occur. Therefore, it was necessary to innovate, modernize and professionalize municipal public administration. Bom Despacho performed this at a low cost, being a pioneer in Brazil.
Methodologies were introduced with the aim of making municipal administration efficient, focused on results that meet the demands of the population. The management model implemented had as initial roadmark the Administrative Reform, which organized the entire structure of the City Hall.
Budget strategic planning was created, with the participation of all departaments.
We also created an “Office of Projects” whose objectives was to raise external resources and manage the City's strategic projects.
This is why the administration paradigm initiated few year ago is creative and innovative: it capitalized on human resourcefulness, free software, tangible and sensible goals.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The initiative was implemented by the local administration which benefited about fifty thousand people, or about 100% of the population. This result is represented by better schools buildings, new public libraries (at least one per school), better rural roads, about 30 km of dirty streets converted to paved streets; extended sewage system, and the an upgrade from 8 family health teams to 18.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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Money wise, the strategy was quite inexpensive. First, because all the expenses involved could be covered by the savings generated by the changes themselves. Second, because, basically the strategies involved mainly paradigm shifts, new ways to perceive the reality and new ways do find better solutions.
One example comes to mind. Interest rates set by the Brazilian Central Bank is very high in Brazil (about 14.25% last year). The municipal administration has a considerable amount of money flowing in and out. Using this fact judiciously and investing this floating money brought in an additional income that represented almost 2% of the annual income. Thats free money. But this revenue is only possible when you have cash flow under control. And for this to happen, you need people with the right knowledge and attitude, plus the right software tools.
Anyway, the first step was to establish the goals for the next four years, reorganize the structure, making it flatter; establish priorities, change people’s mindset and put tangible results as the gold standard to measure success.
On the most important step was the adoption of a software tool named URBEM that, besides being free and open, was also compliant with the new public accounting standards and provided an integrated vision of the several branches of public finances and administration.
To make sure that things would move forward, two task forces were created and named, respectively, "Municipal Public Management Quality and Control Committee" and "Zero Waste – Program for Improvement of Public Spending.
Everything in place, next step was to go after the tax evader. In 2013, IPTU (a property tax exacted by the municipality) had and evasion rate of 70%. Now it has been reduced to 8%.
Finally, selected indicators were repeatedly applied to gauge the results. Things like infant mortality rate, number of children in school, age at which students learn how to read, students weight, number of dental cavities, number of senior citizens active in social programs, improvement on urban infrastructure, etc.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The initial blueprint was designed by the mayor himself and promptly adopted and his direct aids and then by most of the public servants.
By its own nature, the project implementation is dependent on the massive involvement and participation of the majority of the public servants. Without their commitment, there would be no way to make it fly.
Besides that, it was supported by NCM (National Confederation of Municipalities) that provided the cost-free software tool (URBEM) which brought extraordinary efficiency gains to the municipal administration from 2014 on.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The project was successful, first of all, because it took organizational cultural issues into account. That is, it put people first. From the beginning, one of the main concerns was to let people know what was expected from them and what kind of benefits the paradigm shift request from them would entail for the population the were supposed to serve.
Next factor was a stepwise approach. This way, people could not only have time to learn and understand what had to be done, but also see the intermediate results and collect some fruits of their labor.
Third, and equally important, was the fact that most employees could see understand what the long-term goals were.
Most visible and successful results could be seen on the reduction of resources spent on bureaucratic activities with increased investment on end-results or services that the citizens could enjoy.
Finally, an aspect that must not be forgotten is transparency. The software tools used by the administration know allow citizens to keep tabs on expenditures. This includes knowing where the money goes to, how much the local government pays for each item, be it brick, mortar, lunch for students, wages, utilities bill.
An analysis conducted by the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro - Firjan – in 2015 indicates that Bom Despacho improved its management. The analysis evaluated how the financial resources and payment of debts of Brazilian municipal governments are managed. Bom Despacho once again stood out. Among the 853 municipalities of the Minas Gerais State, the city placed 91st and in the national ranking it went up to 866th place among the 5,573 municipalities in the country.
In the same year the Union General Comptroller raised Bom Despacho from its last position to 9th position in the municipal transparency ranking.
With more efficient management, the investments made by the local government jumped from R$ 2.5 to R$ 6.2 million between 2012 and 2016, an increase of 148%. During the same period, the local income per capita jumped from R$ 17,4 thousand to R$ 20,5 thousand. Job creation kept positive even though the country and the state were consistently losing jobs.
As a result, poverty and extreme poverty has decreased significantly between 2012 and 2016, from 1,856 in need of food stamp to 1,517 – down by 18.2%.
Those were very positive results.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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The first obstacle was the cultural resistance offered by the municipal public servants to the changes that had to be introduced. This was expected and handled from the beginning with candid transparency and open discussion whenever an opportunity came by.
Also, the offering of several courses in the local public servant school were instrumental in overcoming the cultural resistance.
Another challenge was to find qualified technicians in the area of information technology. An experienced professional was hired to manage and train the IT team of the and it worked, in spite of the difficulties arising from the software tool that was not completely tested and mature. But this was to be expected since this was a pioneering project that had never been tried before in Brazil.
In summary, NCM cooperation was fundamental in overcoming the technical issues and an open and democratic relationship with the municipal employees was fundamental in overcoming the issues entailed by cultural changes.
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