It’s budget time and our village manager has provided the village board with some metrics to see how efficiently Winfield is using its labor. It appears that we are pretty dang efficient. You can see from the chart and graph that our ratio of people on our payroll to resident population is the lowest in DPC except for Carol Stream.
The chart tells its own tale though. Is this the story telling us that Winfield is efficient? Or is it telling us that we are so close to broke that we have cut to a skeleton crew? To answer that question we would need compare the ratio of citizens to tax receipts for the same bunch of towns. If Winfield is at the bottom of the list it is evidence that we are broke. If Winfield is in the middle or top it shows that we are good stewards of the people’s money.
I don’t have those numbers but I do have these, leftover from the road referendum information.
It appears to me not that we are running efficiently out of choice but out of necessity. It tells me that Winfield needs to get cracking to find ways to make more money. Preferably ones that don’t involve taxing our citizens anymore in these trying economic times.
Amen Tim!!!
I do not look at it the same way that you do. It is good if the staff is minimized as long as the necessary government services exist. I had worked these numbers previously, and the numbers in their own right, lie because there is no good way to wash out the variances. Also, as community size increase, the overhead of the community generally increases by 15% per doubling. This means that the unit cost per constituent increases by 15% when the population doubles. For example, a larger community needs a higher number of police per thousand constituents. At the low end, the number of police is higher, until it reaches the minimum to cover shifts (we suffer a bit from that because the optimal size is 12-14K. In contrast, public works costs decline by 15% owing to efficiencies.
So, if you included population, and the formula, you would find that we were pretty efficient, not necessarily effective (least cost for acceptable service).
Relative to Sales Tax Revenue, one must take into account land area, population, ratio of residential to commercial, and property valuation amongst others. It would also be useful to consider revenue sourcing, the local community as customers versus the broader community as customers.
As we start to look at the overlays of government services, i.e., Village, Township, County, State, and Federal; one finds that the actual numbers as of government workers per unit population are incredibly, sadly, high.
The economic units of government will need to change and the services consolidated.
Yes, the Village runs lean out of necessity, but it is not as bad as you propose; lean is good.
Leroy, I am always looking for blog ideas and you pose some interesting questions. I wonder what the ratio of staff to population is for our neighboring cities in the public works and protective services. I’m also interested in how you figure the optimal village size is 12 -14 K. I would think the efficiencies go up as size increases. That’s usually the way it works.
Regarding police staffing levels, the minimum level, two officers on duty, based on 24×365+coverage including vacation, training, court, mgmt, etc, works out to needing slightly higher ratio to get to the minimum, and then, follows the stated pattern (15% rule).
Regarding efficiencies, my statements came from a study that I will need to dig up for you. In the study (still ongoing), they were looking for the natural effects of scale. Consider the relationship of a hummingbird to an elephant. The heartbeat per unit mass follows the rule (equation). The simple view is that for infrastructure services, if we have six public works staff members for 8000 constituents, then if the community grows to 16,000, we not need twelve, but rather 12 – (12 * 0.15) because public works ( water, sewer, utility) has increasing efficiency with scale. In contrast, if the optimal police staff is 21 for a community of 12,000 to 14,000, and the community grows to 24,000 to 28,000, then owing to the increased difficulty of policing a larger population, the community will require (21 * 2) * 1.15. Non- infrastructure services follow the later equation and become less efficient as they scale, while infrastructure service become more efficient as they scale. The same is true in nature, the heartbeat, etc of animals follow the formula based on mass – it is quite wild that it does.
In very small communities, some forego active 24 hour a day services, or consider the officer to have regular yet 24 hour availabilty in an emergency to break the minimum shift staffing. Owing to budgets, this is becoming more common – one might label this the Mayberry effect.
Most governmental services do not gain efficiencies as they scale; rather the weight of government increases.
Looking at the sales tax revenue I don’t think anyone is surprised that this number is so low as compared with other communities in the county. I also think it indicates how really small Winfield is in comparison to other communities. If I was in marketing this would be a great information to share with prospective businesses outside of Winfield. Though it shows dollars in tax revenue, it also reflects how much business is done in those communities. A note of sarcasm here when I say that “Winfield thinks it will get outstanding businesses to hang out their shingle because we have a riverwalk.” Good luck with that.
I also feel that the sales tax revenue chart also indicates just how small a fish Winfield is in the pond. After looking at this in more detail I wonder why West Chicago is not on this list for comparison. Next I wondered why these details were limited to a sampling of communities vs. all of the communities in DuPage County. Perhaps some really disturbing information would be produced if we saw complete comparison details. I have heard it said that there are big lies, little lies and statistics. If you want stats to come out in your favor just change the sampling, right?
I agree that Winfield needs to move fast in generating revenue, but there is so much chaos, havoc and discontent in this village. The reality is, major changes need to take place politically or in the political mindset before any business chooses to open in Winfield instead of our neighboring communities.
Frankly, I have been pushed to the point where I make most of my purchases in Carol Stream and Wheaton intentionally. By doing so I know that Winfield will not be able to frivolously spend any more money that comes out of my wallet. If Winfield wants me to spend more of my money here, then take care of the immediate needs of this village before you spend one red cent of my tax money on a riverwalk. Get businesses into the village that will build their own building with their own money and take care of their own property.
Needless to say, I am not happy with the performance of this village.
Your last sentence. It has me thinking. If Winfield was a stock, I would say it is underperforming the market. It’s a sell. The question that Winfield management should focus on is how do we maximize shareholder value. I am not certain that question has ever been asked or answered.
Lots of food for thought in today’s post. I am really glad you commented.
Consider that some high value (sales and property tax) commercial properties have revenue distribution agreements among adjacent communities. You find them in the nuances of internal systems programs (personal experience in Cook County records.) This could only be the result of hard negotiation at some point in the community development (my estimation). In our case, we should be getting some sales tax revenue from Target, Ultra and Kohls; however, we probably will not because the time for arguing the point of construction.
Naperville, 181 USD sales tax revenue per constituent vs. Winfield at 53 USD per constituent.
True, but Naperville has 20+ automobile dealerships which produce huge amounts of sales tax revenue.
Ok Leroy here is how I take the above. Once again Tim you present the facts well. Funny one does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand your graphs. The fact is that its been 6 years and for some reason Deb would rather stare at Green Trees and NIMBY progress then get out and beat the street to bring business here to Winfield. It is really sad that we can not move and progress to support ourseveles. When we spend our dollars outside of Winfield we are not getting back a rebate to benefit from. However we need to be smarter to bring business and not offer up too much $$$$$$ so we can keep the storefronts filled. Face it we need a better business plan ours seems to suck, it can not support itself. Running more efficient does mean cut employees, it means share resources, bigger discounts, cutting overtime, and sometimes better everything. But it starts by planning, execute, and tweak and succeed. Like I said before sooner or later Winfield will just be a blink and a Hospital.
LRRH, you miss my point – being in a graphic does not mean the data is correct, it needs at every point the dimensions of population, area, housing value, etc. The problem is that it takes some rocket science or intellectual honesty to understand the difficulty within the numbers, and present the data more accurately. Then there are the motives of the person assembling the numbers, in this case, the village manager – what were his real motives? I would propose rather than efficiency, the motive is needing more staff, a common theme of government (seen in the strategic planning session)
I agree with the rest of your points.
Nope. Where’d you get that list from?? There are more than 14 communities in Dupage County. No West Chicago, no Villa Park, no Elmhurst, and that’s only at first read. No Geneva. Oakbrook +- Terrace. Westmont. Darien. Wooddale.
Someone omitted some data….which tells me that some created this list designed to only show you part of the picture.
I call BS.
Village manager sent it out. Not so sure it is scientific but that doesn’t make it pure BS. Yes it is possible that the numbers were cherry picked however, as a guy that has attempted to compare Winfield to it’s neighbors with data, it is sometimes very difficult to tease the numbers you want to see out of the financials. They may have been omitted because their budget style or reporting is opaque. It is fair to be skeptical but not fair to call BS.
I don’t proclaim to be a number cruncher, statistician or an economical wizard but, I have crunched a couple of numbers that show a different picture that might be worth some consideration.
The accuracy of these numbers may be in question to a small degree, but I did google search the information. I would think it’s close enough “for government work.”
For Wheaton the amount of sales tax generated per person in 2010 is $173 per person
For Wheaton the amount of revenue generated per person in 2010 is $706 per person
For Winfield the amount of sales tax generated per person in 2010 is $38 per person
For Winfield the amount of revenue generated per person in 2010 is $394 per person
So when it comes to generating revenue or specifically sales tax revenue in the Village of Winfield I wonder how many businesses would have to open to get us “On The Map” as it has been said by a member of Winfield United.
In addition, what would be the cost of the projects to provide the necessary traffic flow to “hopefully” steer the traffic necessary to travel by those businesses?
If I have not stated it before, there seems to be some fundamental planning problems when it comes to the development of this village.
When it comes to generating the quickest bang for the buck, I feel that the village needs to truly evaluate the routes with the highest traffic patterns and get businesses in currently available locations sooner than later. That revenue could then be used to better plan for this town center riverwalk concept.
Just my point of view for the day. Then again, I could be wrong.
If you want to work together on number crunching, let me know.
There is an aspect of leakage, since Winfield people are shopping in Carol Stream and Wheaton.
Like I said, I am not a number cruncher so I think I will leave that to the professionals. Nor am I a politician, this village needs more than I could provide. I try to observe and get some type of understanding that I hope makes some sense.
Regarding leakage of revenue, sure I am guilty of that, but I would tend to speculate that I am not the only one. We don’t have a grocery store so we have to shop out of town. We could go on and on with what Winfield doesn’t have but that list might be to exhaustive for this post.
If I was King, I would be looking at what Winfield needs to do to get residence to spend more money here first then you look at what you can do to get your out of town customers. In addition, I would be looking at what we can do rapidly with the land resources we have to generate revenue the quickest. The other issue we need to consider in this situation is that we are pretty much land locked right now and the trains through this “town center” severely and negatively impact the flow of traffic in that region. So I pose the question … What can Winfield do the quickest to generate more revenue without dipping into the funds this village should be using for necessary improvements?
Is a bakery that the village gives 30-50 thousand dollars really going to be a big bang positive impact to our sales tax revenue? I would want to know how long it will take to recoup those funds in sales taxes before I just willie nillie give it away.
If we look at the sales tax revenue alone, in order to double that number we would require multiple businesses, potentially double the current amount of businesses, to generate that income. It’s obvious that we do not have the land to do that. So what are our options? Right now I do not have an answer for that. Then if you think about it further, how many businesses would it take to generate the sales tax revenue per person that Wheaton obtains? Seems like an unattainable goal right now.
Now I am just going to think out loud for a minute and ask some other questions. How much entertainment value does Winfield provide besides the meetings at village hall? How many people in Winfield go elsewhere for entertainment? What entertainment is there in Winfield for teenagers? I am not going to answer these questions but I am smart enough to know that there are many factors to consider for these types of ventures.
The fact remains that poor planning gets poor results. We can’t change the decisions of the past, effective and profitable changes require the best planning this village is capable of. Does anyone see that taking place right now?
It is tough to compare us to Wheaton or Naperville. Wheaton has some major department stores and enough auto dealers to line the coffers. To draw in huge amounts of sales tax you will need huge amounts of sales. Not too sure many would be in favor of huge box-store in the neighborhood. Nor do we really have anyplace to put a WalMart, Meijer, or what have you even if they did want to locate here. And I still believe that downtown growth is terribly limited by two lane roads and a thousand trains a day. So where to look? Geneva Road between Walgreens and CVS, or County Farm and St. Charles? I don’t know…
The River Walk and CDH will take care of everything. Trees on Roosevelt and more forest preserve (untaxable) will create a better enviroment for the feel good policies of the corporate world and Winfield United and CDH buracrats that are running the village.
Go to sleep, take a pill and dont worry about a thing. We are all eating (CDH) Soylant Green.
It’s interesting that since my delivery to the village board, the phrase “Bedroom Community” has been banished from the Winfield United lexicon, which meant, “a place where opportunity does not exist”- That’s a good start!
To be more in line with the commentary of the original article, it would be my observation you are right Tim, understanding that people that are working for Winfield are working harder and are very efficient. I believe the individuals of each department are doing their best with what they have in the budgets and I have always thought that they should be recognized for it.
Winfield cant be compared to other communities as mentioned in prior comments, but on the other hand, each community is as different as every individual, we need to find our own path, and define ourselves. I hope that everyone involved is starting to see that CDH is starting to define us, consciously or unconsciously.
We must be aware that there is a board of un elected directors that sees themselves as the central planners, makers and breakers of our community somewhere within the walls of CDH and if we let our guard down; and we have, we will have to redefine ourselves again.
Randy Voss
In the final analysis, Debbie Birutis and her Winfield United counterparts have proved their run is turning out to be the single worse seven years in Winfield’s history. Even Winfield United with their self-serving blinders have to acknowledge the chaotic state they have thrust the village into with our ever-decreasing fund balances, crumbling roads, underfunded pensions, and outrageous water rates.
As a result, Birutis and Winfield United’s non-existent development and careless financial policies are being uncovered, as well as poor logic of argument and their entrenched bias to not change a thing.
New ideas tend to go where they are best treated. As a result, the investment community has shifted away from Winfield. This shift has had a disruptive market effect on Winfield’s financial well-being as well as feeding a continued down-turn in property values.
If you still believe in Winfield United’s do nothing agenda, here are several questions that you may consider asking our Village President Birutis or Winfield United President Steve Romanelli at the next secret Winfield United get together:
1. What were Winfield United’s and Birutis’ expectations for the redevelopment of the community, and how did those expectations compare to the actual results?
2. How did Winfield’s performance compare to that of our surrounding communities? In what areas did Winfield United and Debbie Birutis outperform, and in what areas did they underperform — and why?
3. What were Debbie Birutis’ economic expectations, and how did those expectations compare to the actual events? Where and why were her assumptions wrong?
4. Why didn’t Debbie Birutis change her strategy as economic and financial events changed?
5. Why did Winfield experience outsized property losses compared to our surrounding neighbors? What did Birutis do to institute a change in philosophy to stop the losses? If nothing, why were losses allowed to compound?