The eighth annual Government Efficiency and Accountability Review or GEAR report is released by Gov. John Carney.
GEAR was created by Carney to identify ways state government can improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of public services while reducing costs.
GEAR’s Executive Director Charles Clark says the savings this year are substantial.
“More than 100 practitioners from 23 state organizations are executing projects within a portfolio of 147 initiatives to improve efficiency,” said Clark. “The savings from this work are estimated to total $101 million over the life of projects underway.”
One savings method is converting leases to get better deals and buying facilities instead of leasing them according to Bryan Sullivan, OMB’s Director of Management Efficiency.
"74 leases have been renegotiated and extended. Basically, that project has resulted in more than $35 million in savings and 9.9 million in soft dollar rent savings, that's painting, upgrading electric vehicle charging stations and the like," said Sullivan.
The report identified an estimated $101 million of savings this year.
Some highlights included saving taxpayer dollars by expanding broadband access across the state, and enrolling more school libraries in the Delaware Library Catalog and Consortium.
GEAR Deputy Director Dan Madrid says modernizing state services is another way taxpayer dollars are being saved.
"We're now looking at all these other systems where people apply for various benefits and programs and finding ways to create efficiencies and ultimately a friendlier user experience,” said Madrid. “The tagline is why wait in line when you can go online for state services."
Other highlights include recognizing state employees who do innovative and cost-saving work, and modernizing public schools by focusing on student enrollment, school finance, and unit count information systems.
Moving forward, the hope is to get the GEAR executive order reauthorized by incoming Gov. Matt Meyer, target $300 million in savings in the next term, and expand state employee training opportunities even further.
The full report is at gear.delaware.gov.
