Dr. Collins is the Intradepartmental Projects Administrator for the Florida Department of Revenue (DOR). In addition, Collins has worked in and consulted with numerous Florida organizations, including Florida State Hospital, the Department of Children and Families, and the Florida Sterling Council. His15 years of experience in the public sector includes roles in major organizational transformations in strategic planning, process management systems, measurement design, and reengineering projects.
Dr. Collins is the Intradepartmental Projects Administrator for the Florida Department of Revenue (DOR). In addition, Collins has worked in and consulted with numerous Florida organizations, including Florida State Hospital, the Department of Children and Families, and the Florida Sterling Council. His15 years of experience in the public sector includes roles in major organizational transformations in strategic planning, process management systems, measurement design, and reengineering projects.
The Florida Department of Revenue has been working on redesigning the agency’s processes for several years. Collins pointed out that tax departments all over the country are at the forefront of re-engineering because they can clearly measure the cost of operations versus the revenues raised.
The Department of Revenue employs 5,500 people and has a $400M Budget. It is the sixth largest state agency and collects over $35B a year in taxes and child-support services.
The vision for the DOR was to be competitive with world-class organizations, demonstrate integrity in all agency actions while exemplifying the best in public service.
The mission of the DOR is to be innovative while promoting change and excellence in all the agency activities.
In order to fulfill the mission, the DOR created a strategic leadership system to ensure the goals would be met. The first thing was to understand all the business processes. Then operational plans were created for each process and these were monitored on a daily basis, ensuring continuous process improvement.
The steps in the plan were as follows:
- Determine strategic direction
- Develop strategies
- Display operating plans
- Monitor and improve implementations
- Create successful leadership and employee benefits
- Return to the top and repeat
Using a performance management approach, The DOR promoted a common understanding of the business process and established clear goals and measures for all processes down to the line employee level. Roles and responsibilities of process owners and managers were identified.
Teams were created and processes were identified across all programs. There were several levels of documentation for the processes that included Business Relationship Diagrams, Core Process Outlines and Process Description Templates. There are a total of 177 processes for the whole agency.
Measures were selected to track the progress toward the process goals. Collins said it is important to select the most meaningful measures in order to reduce the time and effort required to collect and analyze data. Management worked to continue improvement by focusing on reducing the performance gaps.
The business results were:
- GTA (taxes) – $31 B collected, annual growth of 10.6%, 4 year growth of 22.7%, overall services customer satisfaction 93%, 4 to 1 ROI on SUNTAX
- CSE (child support) 03-04 collections exceeds $1B, 3rd consecutive year of double digit collection
- PTA (property tax) Property value assessed $1.3 Trillion, TPP value – $121 Billion, stronger analysis
The lessons learned include:
- Leadership vision for the system and personal commitment of leaders is essential.
- Careful planning and patience is necessary.
- Design the system using teams and a “catchball” approach. It can’t be just top-down direction.
- Use the tools and approaches to ensure that a process management system is developed.
- Use a formal communications plan during the design and implementation. Build on small successes. Results create momentum for further progress.
- Review and act on results before the entire system is in place.
Collins said that this kind of work can not be done overnight, so good planning is essential for success along with the patience to see the project through.
