Lexington, KY - Can government be run like a business? Can you get a donkey to turn right if it's determined to go the other way? More on all of that in a minute.
Few municipal governments in the United States have a higher percentage of former business leaders serving in senior administrative roles than the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government. In the case of LFUCG, it's nearly unanimous.
So what does this mean to you if you are a citizen and business owner in Lexington? It will be interesting to watch for answers while following the path of the latest arrival at The Government Center in downtown Lexington.
Linda Rumpke came to Lexington 23 years ago from Springfield, Ohio, and a life heavily influenced by the virtues and challenges of public service. Her grandmother, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins all worked at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. It can be said literally that the civil service culture is in her DNA, which makes Rumpke a rare find in the corporate world of banking and finance where she has spent her career, most recently as president of Chase in Lexington.
On October 15, pending confirmation by the Urban County Council, Rumpke will make the transition from private to public sector, tapped by the first Lexingtonian she met upon arriving in the Bluegrass more than two decades ago, then-attorney Jim Newberry, to serve as commissioner of finance and administration in the merged urban-county government he has since been elected to lead as mayor. She succeeds career government numbers cruncher Kyna Koch, who left the city for a position in state government, and interim commissioner Bill O'Mara who will return to his former position as director of the division of revenue.
"As a result of those dinner table conversations, she undoubtedly has some greater appreciation for the differences between the private and the public sectors than someone would had they not had the benefit of that experience," Newberry noted, commenting on Rumpke's Ohio upbringing. However, he cautioned, "She's still going to have to adapt, because it's a different environment."
In her new role, Rumpke will have only a short time to acclimate to the system while becoming the face for the city in how it collects its taxes and fees and how that money is spent and/or allocated.
But she may find some comfort in joining a senior staff drawn almost entirely from the private sector. "They are believers in this community and they are doers. And that's what attracted me. They don't just talk about it. They actually step up to the plate. That was really the ultimate decision for me. If the mayor could assemble that many people of like mind with respect to community service, I want to be a part of it."
The team she'll soon join includes: former Columbia Gas president and cattleman Joe Kelly, now the mayor's senior advisor; General Services Commissioner Kimra Cole, former director of development for the family-owned Cole Group, and prior to that, director of sales, marketing, engineering and operations services for Columbia Gas of Kentucky; Mike Webb, commissioner of public works and development, who retired from Columbia Gas in 2007 after 27 years with the company; Environmental Quality Commissioner Cheryl Taylor with 24 years of industry experience as an engineering manager for Procter & Gamble; Logan Askew, commissioner of the department of law, who in private practice had specialized in municipal law; and Chief Information Officer Rama Dhuwaraha, former director of business development with Lexington's QX Networking and Design Inc.
And, of course, there is the mayor himself: the former partner-in-charge of the Lexington and Frankfort offices of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, who has represented small- and medium-sized businesses focusing on issues related to international trade, health and equine law. Newberry also has state government experience as a former acting secretary of the Kentucky Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet, as well as former executive officer in the Office of the Lieutenant Governor.
The role of finance commissioner permeates every function of the urban-county government, Newberry explained in detailing the oversight Rumpke has been asked to assume. "She will have responsibility for overseeing the collection of revenue that comes in from payroll and property taxes. She'll be responsible for overseeing our grant writing and administration function. She oversees the accounting function, and she also will have the human resources and purchasing functions."
Public sector leaders with such enormous responsibilities often work difficult hours for lower incomes than their counterparts in the private sector. It can be crucial to wait for the right time in one's life to enter public service in terms of work versus family obligations.
"We as a family had to step back and say, 'Okay, is this going to work for us from a financial aspect?' So that was a factor," Rumpke told me. "But really, I work tremendously long hours now. So the hours are probably going to be about the same. Coming off of the financial crisis that we've all lived through the last 18 months, I've been working seven days a week, as most financial services professionals have. You're on call 24/7, because you're here for your clients. So, in making the transition to the Urban County government, I'm on call, because the taxpayers are my ultimate boss."
Rumpke will now have an opportunity to take up her own recent challenge to the Lexington governing, business and academic communities to break out of a pattern of seemingly endless discussion and start actually implementing ideas that can evolve Lexington closer to the city's unrealized potential.
She acknowledged, however, that the times have dictated a calibration of expectations. "What we're looking to do as a team is to step back and learn how to work in this financial environment," she said. "We obviously have some tremendous challenges with our revenue and learning how to be more efficient. Doing more with less is a common theme in both the public and the private sectors. Working at a firm such as JPMorgan Chase, we have learned how to grow in the private sector not only by growing our client base but also by managing our expenses in an efficient and wise fashion. I think I can bring that to the public sector and apply some of those same principles."
One LFUCG insider cautions that even as the mayor moves to reorganize for more efficient and effective government, an entrenched bureaucracy persists. The civil service system exists to protect from political whim and whimsy government employees who are essential to the implementation of local laws and ordinances. Under the system, you can't just fire people when they don't perform. Many, of course, are very dedicated and are good at what they do. But others always have been or have become mediocre at their jobs. A recent pay raise, limited by tight revenues to one percent, has not helped, inspiring many to "work to the rule."
No volunteering. No doing extra.
"I grew up on a farm, and we had a donkey that all the kids would ride. Her name was Smokey," recalled Newberry. "Turning Smokey was pretty impossible. You'd have both hands on one set of reins, pulling as hard as you could and she'd be going in the other direction. Nature of the beast. Sometimes I have felt as though I'm back riding Smokey again."
While Rumpke enters the public sector, perhaps more aware than many of the stubborn challenges she faces, the change still can be a shock. "Private sector executives who move into the public sector often find it frustrating that they can't make things happen as quickly as they could in the private sector," observed Ed Jennings, professor of public policy and administration in the University of Kentucky's Martin School of Public Policy. "There are more checks and balances in place. More people who have to sign off on things. It can be more difficult to change human resources in a public organization and requires some persistent effort."
And, added Jennings, public sector officials are far more subject to transparency and accountability than their private sector counterparts. "People in the finance industry have gotten a lot of scrutiny lately - normally they don't. Normally the people who are looking at them are the other executives of the firm and the firm's board." Another important difference, noted Jennings, is attention to the bottom line. "In the private sector, you may need to think about whether you're looking at the short term or the long term, and you certainly have a lot of important strategic decisions to make. But the bottom line is not as clear in the public sector. It's more complicated. There are more goals that get tied in and probably a broader array of expectations about what's going to happen."
Also counseling his private sector colleagues to practice patience and persistence is revenue chief, Bill O'Mara. "In the private sector, you have a meeting, you make a decision and you go out and implement. In the public sector, you have a meeting and then you start to get the approvals and go through the legislative or review process, and it takes awhile before you get to the implementation mode. Sometimes that can be quite difficult to adjust to. But if you have the persistence to keep at it, then you can make a change and put it into effect."
Rumpke said the trajectory of her life as a child of civil service who made it in the banking business has prepared her to take it all on, determined to make a real difference. "You have to be a doer," she said.
Tell that to Smokey.