Council on Shared Services

Governor Paterson’s Council on Shared Services is broken down into 6 teams, which will address the 6 areas most appropriate for consolidation:

• State and Local Purchasing

  The State purchases billions of dollars worth of goods and services every year. With such volume, state agencies can negotiate lower prices by banding together and purchasing in bulk. While state agencies routinely purchases goods and services through bulk arrangements, this team will identify ways to maximize opportunities to use that purchasing power to reduce costs and save taxpayer dollars.

• Human Resources

  While most state agencies have their own human resources department, there are opportunities to improve services by sharing human resources services across agencies. To minimize duplication of services, the Council will consolidate human resources staff and services in several areas -- training, recruitment, time and attendance, and benefits management.

• Technology

  Information technology services are scattered throughout state government. The Council will explore opportunities to consolidate several services and equipment -- blackberries, e-mail systems, disaster relief services, computer services, and state licensing. This should reduce the overall cost of these services, improve efficiency, and save taxpayer dollars.

• Customer Services

  The State provides numerous services directly to the public that could be provided more efficiently if they were centralized and consolidated. These include issuing licenses, assisting consumers, providing information, and operating call-in services. Among other projects, the Council is working on consolidating state call-in services -- hotlines, help-lines, 211 numbers, public information services.

• Asset Management

  The State owns many different assets -- cars for travel, trucks for construction and maintenance, buildings, parking spaces, land, cell phones, computers, and many more. The Council is exploring opportunities to save taxpayer dollars by managing these assets more effectively.

• Financial Management

  The Council will be exploring all opportunities to reduce costs by merging  financial management systems -- purchasing, contracting, payment collections, and the management of travel expenses, assets, inventory and grants.

Merging State Operations

Governor Paterson has already made significant progress in merging, consolidating, and sharing state services – all with the best interests of the taxpayer in mind:

• The Office of Real Property Services just merged its human resources and fiscal operations into the Department of Taxation and Finance. This merger will save the State over $1 million in salaries and benefits and up to $100,000 in systems expenses. The Office of Taxpayer Accountability is using this reform as a model and exploring other opportunities to roll out similar service consolidations across all state agencies.
• Governor Paterson has developed a new consolidated Financial Management System (FMS) that will replace a hodge-podge of existing costly and inefficient independent systems. The new FMS system will work in tandem with the State Comptroller’s Central Accounting System and streamline the State’s many financial operations – purchasing, contracting, payment collections, travel expenses, asset and inventory management, and grants management.
• The Council is consolidating the State's many license services into a "one-stop shop" for all state licenses provided to the public.
• Governor Paterson is inventorying the state's vacant properties -- selling the properties we don't need, and putting the others to more productive use to generate revenues and save taxpayer dollars.

Shared Purchasing

• The State is expanding opportunities for bulk purchasing of computers, copiers and printers -- the lower costs are extended to local governments, so they can provide property tax relief to their residents.
  Last year alone, the State saved at least $2.6 million on bulk computer purchases, and local governments and school districts saved another $15.5 million.
• The State is developing a standard purchasing contract for all wireless services in the state government system.