Public Works, Controller's Office: Blanket Service Contracts

The Challenge

Before January 2019, service contracts for vendors working with the City were an interdepartmental process that required employees to file different versions of the same form, taking up valuable time. Employees were drafting and re-drafting service contracts specific to individual service firms. The process of receiving and paying an invoice after a service had been completed was even more complex, especially because of the amount of paperwork for each of the different departments. Vendors such as Economy Pest Control, Kleindorfer's Hardware, and Bloomington Paint and Wallpaper are vendors that provide multiple services to multiple city departments. 

The Idea

In the world of process efficiency, there is something known as the “80/20 Rule”. This rule states that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results.

To this end, Michael Large researched which firms they had contracted the most and examined those service contracts. A blanket service contract was created as a template for use across departments.  While this method has been available through the New World software since its implementation it has not been used to its fullest extent. It works like this: after the City receives an invoice, instead of drafting a brand new service contract and attaching the invoice to it, the employee pulls the blanket service contract, inserts the appropriate service contract number, scans it into the system, and sends it off to the Controller’s Office. 

The Cost

Because no new computer systems or software were purchased, the only costs incurred by the City of Bloomington were the time spent training employees on the new process and the time spent finalizing the blanket service contracts. This innovation made the invaluable time of employees involved in the accounts payable process more available to address the needs and concerns of Bloomington residents. 

The Benefits

The blanket service contract process was implemented in January 2019. At the time of this writing, 16 service contracts have been processed using this new system. Using the old way, employees would have spent up to an hour to process each invoice. The new method takes a maximum of ten minutes per invoice. 

This idea proves that innovations don’t have to be fancy or high-tech; don’t have to cost a lot; and don’t have to come from upper management! The thing that made this idea so successful is that it was driven by data, and it made sense to the people doing the job so it was easy to get buy-in for the idea and sustain it over the long term.

Metadata

City Department(s): Public Works

City Point of Contact: Michael Large, Administrative Office Manager 

Partner(s): N/A

Partner(s) Point(s) of Contact: N/A

Date Implemented: January 2019