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Harvard studies city services
By Erin Dower, The Somerville Journal
November 18, 2004
Rather than sitting at a desk to type a term paper, Harvard student Leif Dormsjo is finding himself sliding down a pole and joining firefighters as they respond to emergencies in Somerville. He is one of 60 students cataloguing every service Somerville provides - with the hope of assigning them dollar values.
This exercise is part of a promise Mayor Joe Curtatone made, that he would reform the city's financial practices and get more out of every taxpayer dollar.
"We're following through on a campaign promise to improve services here in Somerville," he said.
Curtatone hopes to convert the city from a line-item budget to an activity-based budget, which indicates how money is spent, not just how much money is spent.
Graduate students from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government are helping city's 18 departments work toward improving spending and increasing productivity.
"They've made Somerville's goals part of their curriculum," Curtatone said.
Meanwhile, the master's degree candidates are gaining experience in City Hall, rather than merely extracting facts from a textbook or blackboard.
"The Somerville project actually allows us to sit down with real people, work with real numbers and deal with real problems," said Patricia Sampayo, a student working with the Recreation & Youth Department.
Curtatone approached Professor Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government last year after she spoke about activity-based budgeting at the New Mayor's Conference at Harvard.
Most cities have line-item budgets, which show all the expenses in the DPW, for instance. Line-item budgets, however, do not indicate the costs to "fill in a pothole, pick up a dead squirrel, remove graffiti, repair a streetlight," and so on, Bilmes explained.
Bilmes said all 20 mayors at the conference last year surrounded her following her lecture to seek advice on activity-based budgeting. Curtatone was most persistent.
"Joe was so enthusiastic that he literally followed me to my class that day and asked my students to help him in Somerville," Bilmes said.
Bilmes expected about 20 students to sign up for the Somerville program, but instead, 60 students, or two-thirds of her class, were compelled to participate this semester.
"There's a very strong desire by so many of the students to kind of get their fingernails dirty," she said.
The students working on the Somerville project are doing it in lieu of a term paper, which counts as 25 percent of their grade, Bilmes said.
Dormsjo, who is in his second year at the Kennedy School, is working with the Somerville Fire Department to help recommend where costs can be cut and how spending can be shuffled.
"Students who are involved in government are usually involved in academic coursework and are not getting a lot of real-world, hands-on experience," Dormsjo said.
This program, however, matches students with departments they are interested and competent in so that they gain experience in the field of government they plan to enter or already work in, Dormsjo said.
"We actually have a doctor who is in charge of the health department team," he said.
Dr. Anthony Dias is a physician who is pursuing a master's degree in public health at Harvard. He works weekly with the city's health department officials to map out what they achieve how much it costs.
The experience has been "immensely valuable" to Dias, he said, because it shows exactly how the details of a budget can affect something as important as public health.
City officials also consider the program an extremely beneficial experience.
"It's not costing us anything, but they're delivering a product," Curtatone said.
With the help of the Rappaport Institute of Greater Boston, students are able to get reimbursed for the costs of transportation to Somerville, photocopying or any other details related to the project, he said.
John McGinn, the city's finance director, agreed that Somerville is truly gaining from the partnership with the Kennedy School.
"If we were trying to do this in-house, it would be a tremendous time commitment," he said.
Sixty students working at least four hours a week for about six weeks adds up to a whole lot of help, he said.
Jim Halloran, the city's chief information officer, said the four students he has worked with for the past month are doing investigative work his small staff could never take the time to do.
In turn, the students will be able to bring what they have learned in Somerville to the table at their future jobs, wherever they may be, he said.
One of the students, Tim Davis, plans to work for the city of Boston, while another, Jason Qian, will return to an information-technology position in the Chinese government.
"A lot of young people who go into government want to change the world," Halloran said. "It's definitely not that easy."
Working in Somerville might be a start.
Copyright 2004 Somerville Journal
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