Did you not see the memo on the TPS reports?

It seems like every time I read an article about policy at City Hall there's the mention of a consultant(s). In today's Star there are two articles that immediately jumped out at me. The first was the '07 budget approved by the Police Commission to be presented to the City Council. At one point the article says "The bigger budget reflects the recommendations of a consultant’s report released earlier this month.." The second article is titled "Is another study really needed to fix KC Municipal Court?" It goes on to say that the "city already has spent $227,000 on a 2004 study by legal and efficiency experts that looked at the municipal criminal justice system." Ahh, the good ol' efficiency experts. Anybody remember the "two Bobs" in Office Space? We burn a lot of money on consultants. A lot of money for recommendations and conclusions that could easily be reached by the people doing the work in the departments being studied. One of the main recommendations of that $227,000 study of the municipal court system? Better computer technology. Gee thanks! Didn't see that one coming. I spent many hours during the 90's taking classes in Total Quality Management. It was the big management fad back then. Fad or not, I learned a great deal. I think the primary lesson I keep with me is that in order to improve a process, you need to include the people in the process on your team. Who better to make recommendations about how to do a job better than the people actually doing the job? We should skip the consultants and rely on the talented individuals we already have. They have the most knowledge about what's going on. I have a feeling any municipal court employee could have told us we needed better computer technology. As my dad used to say, "You want to learn how to dig a hole? Talk to the guy with the shovel."