The Florida Department of Revenue has over 5000 employees and a $400M budget. It is the sixth largest agency in the state. The total taxes collected are over $35B for the fiscal year.
The goal of the Department of Revenue’s strategic initiative is to become competitive with world-class organizations in its results and be able to accomplish the mission better than anyone else could. The customers, stakeholders, beneficiaries and suppliers (tax payers) are:
- Policymakers (the Legislature)
- Federal Government
- State and local governments
- Property tax appraisers and collectors
- Governor and Cabinet
- Businesses and individuals
- Delivery partners, DMS, DCF, Legal service providers and others
The department started a Business Process and Strategic Initiative in 2000 and identified 52 business processes and 45+ process owners. The goal was to provide DOR with timely, accurate and relevant information to make more effective management decisions and improve business process performance while giving the DOR employees timely, accurate and consistent feedback on how their performance contributes to program and agency success.
By 2005, six Task Teams have been launched. These are:
- Process review, analysis and validation
- Resource allocation and management
- Benchmarking
- Standards for critical assessment linked to employee evaluation system (SCALES)
- Technology
- Change management
The Process Review, Analysis and Validation team has promoted a common understanding of DOR processes and established goals and measurable outcomes for all the processes down to the line employee level. The team has identified the roles and responsibilities of the process owners and managers.
The deliverables for the initiative include:
- Info-graphic, the vision to 2007 and beyond
- Business relationship diagrams by program
- Business process outlines by core process, business process, sub-process, activity, and task within the program
- Business process descriptions for core process, business process and sub-process
- BPM measurement guidelines
- Balanced scorecard measures by program
- Leader roles and responsibilities matrix
The dashboard proposal included five main measures. These were:
- Customer/Supplier – includes a call-center service grade with % of tax notices in error, % of tax filers with zero non-compliance in the last 12 months
- Financial- % of state operating budget used, cost per tax filer, accounts receivable
- Business process- % of tax $$ integrated with 6 core process measures
- Learning and growth- includes an employee satisfaction index and hires retained for one year.
- Leadership – leader competency index and % of business plans deployed
The Activity-based Budgeting team is producing a true accounting of what is spent on each business process and the expected output for the funds appropriated. This will allow the budget to be appropriated based on the activity level, not the appropriation category. This allows management by budget rather than expenditures and the unit costs will have meaning that employees, management, and oversight can understand.
The results have been good. The DOR has, for the third consecutive year, achieved double-digit increases in collections. The goal is to be within the top five nationally by 2010. The vision is to be the best tax agency in the world, according to Weeks.
The lessons learned include:
- Rely on your people. They have the solutions; this is not a top-down thing
- Build on small success stories and let those results create momentum.
- Keep your strategic perspective and vision constantly in mind. (This will take 3-5 years to fully develop across the whole organization.
- Communication There should be a continuous flow among the teams and multiple channels
- Listen to the employees and move forward, even on the tough issues
- Don’t micro-manage; trust your peopleWeeks said that there are important questions to ask to begin such an initiative in your state. They include:
- Do you have a statewide strategic plan by business process?
- What are your common core business processes for all state agencies?
- Who are your proposed business process owners who manages the processes?
The statewide goal for business process management is to have no more than 20 customer-driven outcomes and measures for the entire state. According to Weeks, governments around the world are just beginning to look at BPM for streamlining government agencies and making them more effective.
