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"I'm one of the skeptics, I believe. They didn't name me Doubting Thomas for nothing," Legislator Thomas J. Mazur, D-Cheektowaga, said Thursday. "I am glad the control board slowed down this steamroller."
County Executive Chris Collins predicts that Six Sigma, an efficiency doctrine used mainly in industry, will save millions for Erie County government -- if the state-appointed financial control board pays to train hundreds of employees in Six Sigma.
Collins had wanted $912,000, but the control board's Finance Committee on Wednesday said that it wanted to start small and see how it goes. The panel said that it would recommend spending $120,000 to train a couple of dozen workers, and the full board is expected to approve that decision.
The county executive's director of Six Sigma implementation, Alfred Hammonds Jr., regrouped Thursday by asking lawmakers for a procedural vote that would let him narrow the contracts with the institutions providing the trainers -- Canisius College and the University at Buffalo's Center for Industrial Effectiveness, Hammonds' former employer.
"When you are driving change, you have to keep your foot on the gas," said Hammonds, who wanted the Legislature to act quickly Thursday because he wants to show the control board later this year that Six Sigma had indeed saved money and deserves the full $912,000 investment.
Hammonds has already drawn up efficiency projects to pursue in the departments of Public Works, Social Services, Parks and Recreation, Health, and Mental Health. But will they deliver?
"I'm not sure we are going to be saving these millions and millions of dollars," Legislator Timothy M. Wroblewski, D-West Seneca, said when Hammonds briefed lawmakers on his request before their formal session Thursday.
Legislator Robert B. Reynolds, D-Hamburg, who learned about Six Sigma principles when he worked for Ford Motor Co., told Hammonds he saw flaws in the way he was introducing it to county workers. Hammonds has been holding introductory sessions for dozens of workers, but do mainstream employees feel they have a stake? Reynolds wondered.
"If you don't have the employees' hearts, you are not going anywhere on this," he said.
The Legislature and the control board often clash. But members of both have said that Six Sigma will fail if Hammonds and Collins lack cooperation from the rank and file.
Six Sigma is largely untested in government settings in New York. The leaders of the county's blue-and white-collar unions had reminded the control board Wednesday that contracts and work rules limit the flexibility that Collins and Hammonds seem to think they have.
Hammonds got what he wanted Thursday after lawmakers convened their formal session. The Legislature's three Republicans, who are on good terms with Republican Collins, and both factions of the Legislature's 12 Democrats voted to let the county executive's staff draw the contracts and accept the $120,000 when available.
Hammonds had said that he was not a part of the four-member committee that ranked the offers from institutions that wanted the county's training contract and had no role in selecting UB's Center for Industrial Effectiveness.
mspina@buffnews.com
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