The one the pro-charter change campaign is using to show a need to change the form of government? Got it in my hands, courtesy of Ken Rust and the helpful folks at the Office of Management and Finance.

It’s filled to the brim with charts and graphs, and a bunch of language I don’t understand, but here are their recommendations, which should be adequate.

* Bringing more finance processes on-line and automating the journal entry process.

* Eliminate duplicate bureau-level systems in the HR area and enforce a “single source” of information approach for the HR function.

* Deploy greater self-service in the HR/payroll function for HR staff and customers.

* Examine processes in payroll and timekeeping to improve efficiency through automation and process improvement.

* City is implementing approaches such as strategic sourcing to rationalize the supplier database in a manner that is consistent with the city’s MWESB [Minority, Women, and Emerging Small Businesses] policies.

* Develop an organization strategy to reduce fragmentation across bureaus and centralized functions.

- *Realign staff mix, focus clericals on administrative tasks and focus professionals and managers on analysis and decision support activities.

Essentially—align payroll systems and automate human resource services, be smarter about how employees are used, and bridge the gaps between the bureaus. Using this to jump to changing the form of government? A little like using a bazooka to kill a fly.

Another interesting tidbit—the last line of the last page of the report: “The City of Portland has different business requirements, as all organizations in the [Hackett] database do, however, in Hackett experience, the City of Portland is actually less complex than many other organizations in the database.”