Image Credit: Payton Chung

In case you didn’t hear, Mayor Michael Nutter has commissioned a Private Sector Outreach Board to figure out how to make city government more effective, cost-efficient, and quality-driven. He announced the formation of the seven-member board during his January 15th address on the city’s latest budget woes.

In his speech, Nutter said he assembled the board to “look for efficiencies that can possibly be introduced in the fiscal 2010 budget.” But what Nutter really wants the board to do, in the long run, is to assess what he calls “major structural issues that have constrained city budgets for many years if not decades.” By “structural issues,” Nutter means: the city’s tax structure, criminal justice system, court funding and employee pension and health care costs.

With the help of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, Nutter has drafted an all-star team of seasoned private sector leaders to get the job done. Besides having busy day jobs and serving on multiple boards, these executives are expected to pitch in at least 10 - 15 hours a week on the Private Sector Outreach Board. For your reference, we’ve put together a roster later in the story so you can see who’s part of Nutter’s new team of private sector gurus. 

So what should the public expect from the Private Sector Outreach Board? For some answers, we spoke with Judee Von Seldeneck, who’s at the board’s helm. She says the city’s managing director Camille Barnett has asked the board to come up with reforms for city government services including: the budget process, public safety, education, sustainability, economic development, transportation, public utilities and customer service programs like 311.

But as a board of CEOs, Von Seldeneck says they’re not going to tell employees in city government how to do their jobs. She explains, rather, that the group will help the city figure out its needs and offer credible solutions from the private sector that can be tailored to the public sector.

In terms of the city’s expectations for the Private Sector Outreach Board, we spoke with Mary Horstmann. She’s the Mayor’s director for Private Sector Initiatives. Hortstmann told us that the new board will identify problem areas in city government, and then recruit talented private sector employees to actually work in city government part time and full time as a way to address those problem spots. In other words, the city would have an executive loan program, which means private companies would loan their employees to the city for free and still pay those employees’ salaries and benefits.

The idea behind such a program is that the private sector can bring expertise to the public sector and implement long lasting reforms that make government more efficient. Horstmann says Philadelphia has studied other governments using executive loan programs, including the state of Michigan, which has had a program in place since 2003.

After talking with Horstmann, we followed up with Von Seldeneck for comment about whether the Private Sector Outreach Board would actually implement an executive loan program, since she hadn’t mentioned it in our original interview. Her response basically was: it’s too soon to say and the board must first identify what needs to be done and then determine if assigning private sector executives to city government makes sense at this time.

There’s little doubt that Mayor Nutter supports an executive loan program, which might explain why Hortsmann told us the Private Sector Outreach Board would help create one. After all, don’t forget what Nutter said in his first speech after being elected. He called on the “best and brightest” to work for him and cited an “executive loan program” as one way to do that. Here’s an excerpt from his speech that day in 2007 posted by Heard in the Hall.

The roll-out of an executive loan program in Philadelphia wouldn’t be anything new. When Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell was mayor of Philly in the 1990s, he also tapped the private sector to help turn around city government, which like today, also faced major financial problems at the time. We’re curious to see what recommendations and actions the new Private Sector Outreach Board comes up with in Nutter’s effort to streamline Philadelphia’s government.

In the meantime, here’s a few questions for you:

1. If you work in the private sector, would you jump at the chance to work in city government through an executive loan program?

2. If you’ve done business with the city, are there departments in city government that you think are inefficient? If so, which ones?

Private Sector Outreach Board Members

Judee Von Seldeneck

Judee Von Seldeneck: Founder and chairman of Diversified Search Ray & Berndtson. Von Seldeneck received prestigious awards for being one of the best in the executive search industry, in which she runs one of the largest female-owned companies. In 2008, Business Week named her one of the top 100 influential global head hunters for executives. Von Seldeneck helped Nutter select top level cabinet members.

Rosemary Turner

Rosemary Turner: Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of UPS Metro Philadelphia District. Turner started working for UPS in college and worked her way up the ranks. She’s managed various UPS district offices from Southern California to the Northern Plains.

Daniel Fitzpatrick

Daniel Fitzpatrick: President and CEO for Citizens Bank of Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Besides experience as a commercial banker, Fitzpatrick is getting Citizens Bank more involved at the community and philanthropic level.

Ann Weaver Hart

Ann Weaver Hart: President of Temple University since 2006. Hart is the university’s first female president. She’s a Ph.D. and her academic interests include leadership succession and development, work redesign, and organizational behavior. Among Hart’s chief goals for Temple are to: increase capital improvements, philanthropy and make the 123-year old university a leader in research and entrepreneurship.

Michael Pearson

Michael Pearson: Owner and President of Union Packaging. Located in Yeadon, Pearson’s certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) rakes in $20 million in annual sales selling paper cartons to fast food establishments. He previously worked in the pharmaceutical and paper industries. The UPENN grad started his packaging company after getting positive feedback about his idea from MBA students at UPENN’s Wharton Small Business Development Center.

J. William Mills III

J. William Mills III: President of PNC for Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. By the way, PNC is the Pennsylvania’s largest financial institution. In 2007, Mills launched a $5 million PNC initiative to help prevent foreclosures across Southeastern Pennsylvania. He’s also positioned PNC as a prime investor in the local arts community.

Harold L. Yoh III

Harold L. Yoh III: Chairman and CEO of Day & Zimmerman. Yoh’s architectural, construction, and engineering firm works around the globe and earns $2.4 billion in annual revenues. (In full disclosure, Yoh is a member of WHYY’s Board of Directors).