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I think this is part of the problem: "We’re dealing with an irrational public who wants greater and greater service delivery at the same time they want their t

I think this is part of the problem: "We’re dealing with an irrational public who wants greater and greater service delivery at the same time they want their taxes to be lower," There's noting irrational about wanting government to take advantage of the same technological advancements that businesses use to improve service while cutting costs. When I order from Amazon, I see real-time inventory, get immediate order confirmation, near real-time tracking as the package is handled (and actual real-time tracking for some orders were I can see where the delivery vehicle is), and delivery to my door step is 2 days (or sometimes the same day). In contrast, when I ordered a dog license from my county, I had to mail (FAX was also accepted) a paper form, and then 6 weeks later I received a metal plate in the mail (just a numeric ID on it, no personalization). The only way I knew they even received my order is because my check cleared the bank 2 weeks after I mailed it (no credit cards allowed). I don't expect my county animal services department to build an order an fulfillment system that rivals Amazon's, but there are thousands of this offices across the country, they could all cooperate on one system and save money dealing wit these paper forms.

Aloha 8y ago
If the paper form costs them less to process than whatever automated system that would provide whatever quality of service you deem acceptable would, why would they switch. Newer and more automated doesnt always save money. I work for a medium size company, our expense reporting system is 100% paper or excel driven - we could go to Concur, but it would probably cost more than our existing system does, and may not pay for itself within the lifetime of the product.
dajohnson89 8y ago
If only the solution were higher taxes. Local & federal government alike are comically wasteful of taxpayer money. I have no problem with paying higher taxes per se, but the return on our investment right now is abysmal. Something has to be done to make governments more efficient. I don't know what that is.
flatfilefan 8y ago
"There's noting irrational about wanting government to take advantage of the same technological advancements that businesses use to improve service while cutting costs." - the irrational thing is to expect this in absence of competition. How about having two or more local governments acting at the same time to enable the true competition?
- Johnny555 8y ago
  It may not be realistic, but I don't think it's irrational for citizens to expect good customer service from government. Competition is no guarantee of good customer service -- cellular companies have some of the worst customer service, but almost everyone has 2 - 4 cell companies to chose from.
  - flatfilefan 8y ago
    Well, those are at best oligopoly. The competition is severely limited through the licensed access to the radio bands.
Roboprog 8y ago
I don’t think most cities have the economy of scale to justify much software development. This seems like something that needs to be done at the state level, setting up cities and counties as multi-tenants within a state level application. Bias: I am working on revamping some systems used within California which feed data in from the county offices to the state office. We are almost done replacing a birth certificate / health survey system from the 80s so that the same database is used state-wide, rather than batch updates between hospitals, counties and the state running separate datastores / app instances. Then we have to make some less drastic updates to some other similar (purpose) systems later this year...
thirdsun 8y ago
Have you seen www.gov.uk? It's not Amazon, but as a german I truly envy the work they're doing to reduce authority interaction and friction as well as informing citizens from a central hub. Sticking with your exmaple, you'd probably search for "dog" and receive actually useful results that range from relevant forms to complex guidelines[1]. The UK's portal has been discussed on HN before and in my opinion it's something other countries should emulate. [1] https://www.gov.uk/search?q=dog https://www.gov.uk/search?q=dog

Aloha 8y ago

If the paper form costs them less to process than whatever automated system that would provide whatever quality of service you deem acceptable would, why would they switch. Newer and more automated doesnt always save money. I work for a medium size company, our expense reporting system is 100% paper or excel driven - we could go to Concur, but it would probably cost more than our existing system does, and may not pay for itself within the lifetime of the product.

dajohnson89 8y ago

If only the solution were higher taxes. Local & federal government alike are comically wasteful of taxpayer money. I have no problem with paying higher taxes per se, but the return on our investment right now is abysmal. Something has to be done to make governments more efficient. I don't know what that is.

flatfilefan 8y ago

"There's noting irrational about wanting government to take advantage of the same technological advancements that businesses use to improve service while cutting costs." - the irrational thing is to expect this in absence of competition. How about having two or more local governments acting at the same time to enable the true competition?

Johnny555 8y ago
It may not be realistic, but I don't think it's irrational for citizens to expect good customer service from government. Competition is no guarantee of good customer service -- cellular companies have some of the worst customer service, but almost everyone has 2 - 4 cell companies to chose from.
- flatfilefan 8y ago
  Well, those are at best oligopoly. The competition is severely limited through the licensed access to the radio bands.

Roboprog 8y ago

I don’t think most cities have the economy of scale to justify much software development. This seems like something that needs to be done at the state level, setting up cities and counties as multi-tenants within a state level application. Bias: I am working on revamping some systems used within California which feed data in from the county offices to the state office. We are almost done replacing a birth certificate / health survey system from the 80s so that the same database is used state-wide, rather than batch updates between hospitals, counties and the state running separate datastores / app instances. Then we have to make some less drastic updates to some other similar (purpose) systems later this year...

thirdsun 8y ago

Have you seen www.gov.uk? It's not Amazon, but as a german I truly envy the work they're doing to reduce authority interaction and friction as well as informing citizens from a central hub. Sticking with your exmaple, you'd probably search for "dog" and receive actually useful results that range from relevant forms to complex guidelines[1]. The UK's portal has been discussed on HN before and in my opinion it's something other countries should emulate. [1] https://www.gov.uk/search?q=dog https://www.gov.uk/search?q=dog