IOWA NEWSPAPERS SHOULD REPORT WHERE THE MONEY IS WASTED

The struggling Cedar Rapids Gazette continues to support tax increases, "it's just a penny" , rather than focusing on ridding taxpayers of paying for waste.  The following table shows where institutions in the Cedar Rapids area waste most of their money.  

The five areas of waste identified are: 1) salaries 2) plans 3) oversight 4) staffing and 5) rework,  and are very similar for State Government, public schools, colleges and universities.  In addition, inadequate work processes, not shown in the table, make matters worse.

Inadequate work processes waste a total of about $40 million, for a total of $193 million of the total $208,723,401 wasted, but these processes are too complex for most people to understand!  Many people can’t tell you what a process is.  They never learned about processes in school.  In a highly efficient organization, processes do most of the work—not people.  Effective processes produce most of the efficiencies realized in economies of scale. 

Don’t blame yourselves if you don’t know what we are talking about—blame large newspapers and public schools, that completely ignore waste, processes, planning, performance and performance improvement--as they blindly promote higher taxes and wasteful spending.   

 

WHERE MOST OF THE MONEY IS WASTED

INSTITUTION

MONEY WASTED ANNUALLY

SALARIES HIGHER THAN JUSTIFIED

NO OR INADEQUATE IMPROVEMENT PLANS

INADEQUATE OVERSIGHT OF PROCUREMENT

OVER STAFFING

REMEDIAL, REWORK OR DO-OVERS

CEDAR RAPIDS SCHOOL DISTRICT

$60,151,471

$6,616,662

$6,015,147

$12,030,294

$15,037,868

$15,639,382

CEDAR RAPIDS, CITY

$53,278,027

$7,991,704

$7,991,704

$13,319,507

$5,327,803

$7,991,704

KIRKWOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE

$48,978,096

$9,795,619

$4,897,810

$4,897,810

$9,795,619

$4,408,029

LINN COUNTY

$40,809,191

$6,121,379

$2,040,460

$4,489,011

$4,080,919

$2,040,460

GRANT WOOD AEA

$5,506,919

$826,038

$550,692

$275,346

$1,101,384

$165,208

TOTAL

$208,723,704

$31,351,401

$21,495,812

$35,011,968

$35,343,592

$30,244,782

 Anyone claiming to have better numbers is asked to provide them for evaluation and comparison.  If you have no numbers at all, please use these, as they are the best you have.