Dunes, Indiana

This Practical Exercise is designed to serve as a "hands-on" reinforcement of many of the theories, concepts, techniques, etc., that you will encounter in this course, and/or have encountered in your previous MPA courses or work experiences. The exercise is a simulation in which you must place yourself in the role of a newly appointed department head in an agency of a small city in Indiana. In this role you must analyze the situation you are entering, make decisions which, hopefully, will reflect a clear understanding of the political context in your city and state and the organizational context of your department, and be able to develop and present the rationale behind your decisions clearly and concisely, both to your organizational ‘superiors’ and, through them, to the appropriate political actors.

You have just left a meeting with your new boss, the Safety Director (Karen Evans). She has laid out the agenda of the Dunes Mayor and its urgency. You are told to go back to the Police Department immediately to begin the tasks assigned to you. You were also told that the deadline is non-negotiable and that the mayor has tried to create a competitive spirit among agencies to see which finishes first. Your boss tells you that she intends to get in the mayor’s good graces by being the first division to finish. You, therefore, are admonished that she will not look favorably on anyone who does not get his/her project in on time. [In order to better create the mood implied by the above, you will not be given the actual assignment material until later in January--you will have less than three months to complete it. Each of you must complete the project by April 16. It must be turned in on time and be of presentation quality. You may have to reference materials other than those provided in class. It would be a good idea to have budgeting and personnel texts handy and that you brush up on spreadsheet and other presentation software. In the course of each separate part of the assignment, there may be hints or references provided to help you. You are not restricted to public administration texts and materials--you may want to get some of your ideas from the business or organizational theory literature. Imagination and creativity are a plus. There are no RIGHT answers; the most important aspect of the assignment is your ability to present your reasoning in the decisions you have made in the final report and your ability to summarize these in the executive summary.]

The instructions for the completion of each section of the exercise will be included in the raw data from which you will be working. Follow them carefully. The exercise may appear to be a little disjointed. This is intentional. In the ‘real’ world, management problems are not laid out for you to follow in lock-step. You must assess the totality of the problem, recognize where areas of the problem intersect, and begin laying out conceptually which alternative actions you might take may have desired impacts. In this regard, I suggest that you read the exercise in its entirety--and think about it--before you begin to work on the individual sections. Nothing happens in public management isolated from the context of the organization and the polity.

The Executive Summary to the report [what you will logically prepare last] should include the following:

Any clarifications required during the semester will be issued via memo or on the "city’s" website.

   GOOD LUCK!!

  V502 Practical Exercise: Data for Dunes Indiana; Instructions for completion

Section 1 Planning

In your meeting with the Safety Director, she shares with you the objectives of the next fiscal year. The city manager has announced the following policy:

 
  Policy Statement of the City Manager, Lester Ficksit
Dunes, Indiana
Our City’s Goals for the Twenty-First Century

Provide leadership and management of all human and fiscal resources within the city of Dunes so as to elicit high morale and team cooperation, enhance community relations, and deliver high quality, cost-effective services to the public. Responsibilities include administration, planning and research, personnel, and public safety. These objectives will be realized in the following manner:

1. Institute an active minority recruitment program so that the representation of minority employees in the city, as per the Consent Decree signed with the Office of Contract Compliance Programs, will be accomplished at an early date.

2. Restore the faith of the general public in city administration. This will initiated through the establishment of Citizen Review Boards for each department. These boards will have oversight responsibility for departmental operations. The selection process for board members will begin immediately. Establish measures that will indicate the degree of success attained.

3. Increase the level of professionalism within city administration by increasing the level of in-service training throughout the city.

4. Increase the cost-effectiveness of city operations by eliminating less productive activities and simplifying procedures so as to reduce the operating budget by two percent in FY 2011.

5. Promote an atmosphere of community safety and security by promptly and courteously delivering services and discharging mandated duties and responsibilities.

6. Investigate and report to the City Manager’s Task Force on Good Government all complaints concerning misconduct of city officials.

7.  Promote ethical conduct in city operations and establish measures that will indicate the degree of success attained.
 

**Adapted from Figure 5-1, Starling (1986) Managing the Public Sector, p. 169.
 
 

Your task now is to examine the City Manager’s policy statement and draw up a plan of action by specifying the objectives to be attained within the Dunes Police Department. The next step is to develop a program intended to implement your plan. You should indicate the planning model you choose for drawing up your plan and be able to defend your choice of model.

What are the things you have to take into consideration here? What are your operating constraints? How realistic can your plan or program be? Be prepared to modify your plan! In the process of performing the balance of this exercise, it may become necessary to change your initial plan. If that is the case, include the original and all subsequent changes in your status report.

This part of the exercise should take about three pages.

Remember: This planning document should be consistent with all other activities in this exercise.
 
 

Section 2 Financial Management

You and all division administrators have been requested by the City Manager to assess your FY 2010 budget as well as a proposed expenditure budget for FY 2011. The FY 2011 budget is to be calculated by increasing the 2010 budget by ten percent for all items that are to be carried over into the next fiscal year. You should also consider what expenditures might be reduced or eliminated. If your plan includes new capital expenditures, a separate Capital Budget proposal should be drawn up.

The Year 2011 Operating Budget should be based on FY 2010:
Budget Items (2010 Costs) This is a Program Budget. Salaries and benefits for personnel assigned to each program are a part of the program's total, as is administrative overhead for each program.
Administration: $270,000 - authorized positions: 5
Jail Operations: $800,500 - authorized positions: 18
Police Operations (patrol, investigative, and traffic): $10,549,343 - authorized positions: 145
Investigative Services (homicide, intelligence, auto theft, etc.): $2,173,432 - authorized positions: 30
Administrative Bureau (finance, personnel, evidence, records, forensics): $2,722,357 - authorized positions: 24
Training & Recruitment: $310,000 - authorized positions: 4

The addition of a Community Services Bureau in 2011 is likely to make it difficult to meet the City Manager's fiscal goals, so be prepared to defend your decisions. Your research into such programs makes it likely that the total cost for such a program for your community is likely to exceed $1,000,000. When putting together your budgets be sure to include the cost of any vehicles needed for the Bureau.

You will need to cost out the Community Services program: what kinds of costs do you anticipate? You are to use program budgeting techniques. Within the program budget, you should develop a line-item budget for the program--salaries, rentals of locations for drop-in centers, etc. Carefully establish your cost categories. FY 2011 costs are to be calculated at FY 2010 costs plus ten percent.

Remember the budget is a planning and management tool. Therefore, it has to be coordinated with the other plans you have for the division.

These budgets should be arrayed on spreadsheets. The resulting graphics that will be a part of the executive summary should reflect your budgetary analysis. Include the spreadsheets in your status report as backup documentation.

In addition to the graphics, this section should not exceed two pages in length.
 

Section 3 Political Environment

One of the political issues which led to the election of a new majority on the City Council was the valid complaint from women and minority citizens of Dunes that they [as groups] were significantly underrepresented in the administration. The anger associated with this issue went unanswered by the previous City Manager and the Council Chair, John Small, except that both denied that the administration discriminated against minorities or women. They were unable, however, to provide convincing evidence to support their claims in this matter. Finally, tired of the seeming run-around, these loosely organized interest groups filed an official complaint with the Office of Contract Compliance [OCC], the cognizant federal agency for affirmative action. A subsequent OCC field review substantiated that Dunes had consistently underutilized women and minorities as employees. It also found unresolved incidents of sexual harassment and racial discrimination. After a court hearing, the city was forced to sign a consent decree stating that these problems would be corrected and setting time guidelines for compliance.

Dunes has a very good newspaper, The Daily Clarion. It has a crusading editor, Benjamin Quill. The outgoing council members and previous city manager have Mr. Quill to thank for their current unemployment. While rumors about the city manager's competence and honesty--and about some council members’ motives and honesty, as well--had circulated for years, but nothing had ever been proven. At least, not until Quill, in the finest ‘deep throat’ fashion found a disgruntled insider in the city manager’s inner circle. A series of searing editorials and probing news stories laid the inner workings of the council and administration open to public scrutiny. The resultant political furor fueled the outcome of the recent election. Only one of the council members tainted by this particular list of political scandals, Barnabas Reese, survived the election. Although now in the minority, he remains a strong political player in Dunes.

Among the laundry list of city problems highlighted in the Clarion are:

1. Sexual and racial discrimination.

2. Misuse of federal grant funds.

3. Failure to accurately keep the public record.

4. Police misconduct and community distrust and fear of the police.

5. Bribery, malfeasance, and ‘sweetheart’ contracts.

6. Inadequate fiscal management.

7. Low morale due to inadequate personnel policies.

8. Cronyism and nepotism.

This list of sins helped to galvanize a formerly ‘sleeping’ public into a more active watchdog of the city’s administration. Quill takes his newly adopted ‘public defender’ role very seriously. He will kibitz often and long with the new administration. The general political climate is highly charged. The public will likely give the new city manager and council a short ‘honeymoon’ period and then will hold both to expectations of substantial improvement.

There are numerous interest groups in Dunes who have suddenly become visible and active players in local politics. They are keenly interested in making sure that Dunes has ‘good government’. They are intrusive, inquisitive, and vociferous. They represent a force to be dealt with by all Dunes managers.

Although many of the charges that have appeared in the Clarion's pages pertain the the Police Department, and you are determined to deal with all of them, your main concern is the relationship between the Department and the citizens of Dunes. You want to weed out police officers who are playing fast and loose with their authority and you want to rebuild community trust. That is why you are considering establishing the Community Services Bureau. What do you need to be mindful of? What can impact your plans? How might each of the following affect your plans: constituents?, cognate agencies?, the watchdog press?, clients? What resources do you have available to facilitate your efforts?, i.e., external support, professionalism, leadership? What strategies are available to you for dealing with other communities in the region and their concerns?

A couple of pages should suffice for this part.
 

Section 4 Intergovernmental Relations

Since the inception of the federal Department of Homeland Security, there has been a necessary shift in emphasis in police and emergency services work - from taking care of one's own city/community toward intergovernmental or interagency cooperation. You will need to establish firm cooperative relationships with many other government and nonprofit entities to play your part in this anti-terrorism effort.

What would your first steps be? What kinds of organizations will your department be working with? In what ways can the Dunes PD contribute to joint efforts? What kind of leadership role are you prepared to take on in these efforts?

A page or two for this section should do the job.

Section 5 Organizational Design

You currently have the following employees in your organization, broken out by section:
 

Administration

Name                 Race           Gender        Position                        Salary

You                                                                      Police Chief                    $60,000
Jones, Mary                   W                  F               Administrative Asst.        $30,000
Mays, Bill                       W                 M            Dep. Chief (Pol. Ops)       $50,000
Michaels, Sam                W                 M            Dep. Chief (Investigations)$48,000
Williams, Jerry                W                 M            Dep. Chief (Admin)          $46,000
Reese, Geoffrey              W                 M            Jail Administrator              $40,000
Leadership and staff functions for the department as a whole, with individual duties as below.

Police Operations

Mays, Bill       W         M            Dep. Chief                               Salary in above budget
This unit is comprised of 144 officers, including Lieutenants, Sergeants, Police Officers, and Dispatchers. Most of these officers are male; more are Caucasian than Afro-American or Hispanic. Since Dunes's population is primarily minority, and in light of the community's increasingly poor relationship with the department, this is an area where you might want to emphasize minority and female recruitment.
The starting salary for Dispatchers is $25,000 annually.
The starting salary for a Police Officer is $35,000 annually
The starting salary for Sergeants is $42,000 annually.
The starting salary for Lieutenants is $45,000 annually.

This is a line unit. It is responsible for responding to reports of crimes committed, patrol, initial investigations, and traffic.

Investigations Bureau

Michaels, Sam    W        M        Dep. Chief                Salary in above budget
Special Investigations (Intelligence, Bomb, Gangs, Narcotics, Vice)
Rinaldi, Gene      W        M        Lieutenant                                      $46,000
Hayes, Joe          W        M        Sergeant, Intelligence                     $44,000
Gold, William       B        M        Sergeant, Narcotics & Vice            $45,000
Hayden, Ron        W       M        Sergeant, Bomb Squad                  $42,750
Brown, Pam         B         F         Sergeant, Gangs & Juvenile            $42,000

The unit contains 8 more police officers.

Criminal Investigations (Auto Theft, Forgery/Fraud, Homicide/Robbery, Sex Crimes, Domestic/Child Abuse)
Burton, Tom        W        M         Lieutenant                                     $48,000
James, Robert      B         M        Sergeant, Auto Theft                      $42,000
Mendoza, Luis     H         M        Sergeant, Homicide/Robbery        $44,000
Jacoby, Madeline  W        F        Sergeant, Domestic/Child Abuse    $42,000
Onasis, Lance        W        M      Sergeant, Forgery/Fraud                 $42,500
Ervert, Peter          W        M       Sergeant, Sex Crimes                     $46,000
The unit contains 11 additional police officers.

These units are responsible for investigations.

Administration Bureau
(Finance, Personnel, Training, and Evidence/Forensics)

Williams, Jerry                W                 M            Dep. Chief          Salary in above budget
Money, Paul E. ("Red")    W                M            Head of Finance        $41,000
Umann, Harvey                W                M            Head of Personnel     $35,000
Petition, Robert E.            W                M            Head of Training        $37,000
Lui, Charles                      A                M             Head of Evidence/Forensics    $47,000
This unit contains 20 more personnel, including forensic scientists and training officers.

This unit is a staff unit, responsible for internal operations and the evaluation of evidence and maintenance of records.

Jail Operations

Reese, Geoffrey              W                 M            Jail Administrator   salary in above budget

The personnel of the City Jail include three Lieutenants, three Sergeants, and 12 Corrections Officers. Mr. Reese, who is the nephew of City Council Member, Barnabas Reese, manages to scrape by on his salary, but questions have been raised about the contracts he has entered into for feeding prisoners. Some even have accused him of sending prisoners out to "work" for various companies unsupervised. Hmmmmmmm......

Proposed Police Community Services Unit

Lieutenant, $45,000
3 Sergeants, at $42,000 each
10 Police Officers, at $35,000 each
Unit Secretary/Dispatcher

This unit will be responsible for foot patrol, Neighborhood Watch Programs, public appearances, the DARE Program, and other community-related activities.
 

As is the norm, the Police Department’s organization is of the ‘pyramid’ type. Review the data provided above and draw this structure. You have some tricky decisions to make. The proposed new Community Services Bureau is being resisted by the heads and officers of the other units, who feel that resources spent on this project could be put to "better" uses.

Study the situation and ask yourself, "What actually has been going on in the Dunes PD? What ought to have been going on? What is our organizational mission?" Draw an organizational chart which depicts the desired state for your organization. How will you handle the following:
span of control? division of labor? hierarchy? Is the pyramid structure the best one for your organization? If not, why not? Defend your choice of organizational structure/design. How will you handle the politics of reorganization?

Your offices are located outside of City Hall. Space is not a problem now, nor will it be in the foreseeable future. However, communication within the department and between the department and the balance of the city administration does pose a problem now and again. Try to solve the communication problem with your new organizational structure.

This part of the exercise should take you about three pages. It is to include, in addition, two structure charts--the way things are now, and what you think the organizational design should be. You’re the boss--be creative.
 
 

Section 6 Organizational Behavior

Upon entering the office on your first day, you are met by waves of rejoicing. All but a small cadre of the employees are generally glad to see you (the exceptions are the ‘insiders’--your predecessor’s cronies). A few in particular have a lot to say with regard to your predecessor! After conducting staff interviews, document analysis, and generally observing the operations of the office, you determine the following:

1. Morale is very low.

2. The atmosphere has been repressive. Your predecessor ‘ruled’ through intimidation and harassment.

3. There is an informal chain of command that supersedes the formal one. A small group of ‘insiders’ ran the department. Supervisors could not effectively supervise their employees because they would be overruled by your predecessor. This has eroded all authority structures in the department.

4. Many people are working outside of their job descriptions and have not had salary adjustments to reflect their increased duties in the past two years. However, your predecessor’s cronies have been handsomely rewarded and you can find little evidence to justify that differential treatment.

5. Sexual and racial harassment had been both routine and was overlooked or condoned by your predecessor.

6. Rewards and punishments were meted out in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Rewards include remuneration and punishments include termination.
 

The net effect of all of this is that the department is inward-looking and playing office politics has become more important than discharging one’s responsibilities. Productivity is down. Absenteeism, sloth, and irresponsibility are up. Your job as ‘leader’ is to motivate your employees, boost morale, and increase productivity. How are you going to do this? Remember, the city manager is looking for budget cuts. What models, theories, and/or concepts for both your conduct and for the organization in general will you use to create a more positive and more productive division? Defend your choices.

This part of the exercise should take two to three pages.
 
 

Section 7 Human Resources Management

A coalition of interests representing women and minorities has complained of under-representation in the city administration. They staged a series of protests, including a sit-in on the steps of City Hall. The Clarion has given their complaints both space and editorial support. By taking the protest to the Office of Contract Compliance, the coalition forced the city to sign a consent decree promising early corrective action for the now verified under-representation.

Lester Ficksit, the new city manager, has made active recruitment of qualified female and minority employees a priority for his new administration. He expects every division administrator to assess operations to determine if there is an under-utilization problem and to create a corrective action plan where there is before any new hiring can take place. This could hurt you. Your proposed Community Services Bureau will require new staff, and quickly. You, therefore, have to conduct a utilization analysis within the department as it is currently constituted and, if there is a problem, you might try to use your hiring decisions to correct it.

Refer to the "Organizational Design" section for a current breakdown of your division. You might want to consider the impact of recent US Supreme Court rulings on Affirmative Action on your thinking about this problem.

Your investigation has uncovered that, despite an active police union, salary increases and promotions have been handled inequitably in the past. You want to correct this. However, you are at a loss to figure out how to do it without creating an inflationary salary spiral in your division. What will you do?

You discover that Geoffrey Reese is the nephew of Council member, Barnabas Reese, one of the few remaining ‘old’ council members. Barnabas may need to be more circumspect in his exercise of influence due to his close call in the election, but remains a powerful political leader in Dunes. He had been accustomed to using his nephew to influence the policy of the Dunes PD prior to the change of administration. Geoffrey Reese, it is rumored, has used his position as Jail Administrator for his own gain. He has a bad attitude, and is generally incompetent. You would like to get rid of him, but at least for now you need to keep him for the sake of continuity and to keep his uncle off your back. You are committed to getting rid of him as soon as possible. How do you get what you need from him now, while at the same time giving him no illusions about his future in the division?

This section should be about 2-3 pages.

Section 8 Administrative Responsibility and Ethics

Dunes has a very good newspaper with a crusading editor. His series of news articles (deep throat) and editorials, as detailed in the section of this exercise titled "Political Environment", brought the change of city administration of which you are a part. Recall the specific problems uncovered by the Clarion and the mayor’s mission statement and commitment to good government.

Your division was formerly headed by a crony of the powerful council member, Barnabas Reese. The former mayor could not bring himself to chastise your predecessor for breaches of good conduct in the department, though all would agree that such action would have been justified. Because the Police Department was so irresponsibly managed, it has taken a lot of flak, both from the public and from the newspaper. You are, as a result of all of this, on the hot seat. You have to restore a sense of accountability and responsibility in the department. How will you do it? Also, ethical standards have been a little loose in the past--’situation ethics’ have been the order of the day. How will you instill appropriate standards of ethical conduct in the division?

Defend your choices.

This part of the exercise should not take more than two pages.
 
 

Section 9 Implementing and Evaluating the New Section

You have to implement the proposal for the reorganization for your department. It is necessary to maintain control over the process. You have begun by making a list of everything that needs to be done in order to accomplish your task. This process resulted in a bewildering list of activities. You are not even sure that this list is complete. Some of the activities include sub-activities; you have to further refine the list. [Do so: include the new list in your report documentation. Cross-check the entire exercise for things that you have to include that are not on the list that follows. Hint: some were purposely left off.] Your preliminary list follows:

1. Redesign the structure of the Police Department, including the Community Services Unit.

2. Hire new officers, promote from within?.

3. Train new officers

4. Perform legal study and research on Community Oriented Policing.

5. Calculate the costs for the new unit.

6. Secure transportation for the new unit.

7. Have program approved by the Safety Director [me].

8. Have program approved by the city manager.

9. Put together a bid for the automobiles.

10. Bid the automobiles.
 
 In order to get better control of the situation, you find it necessary to draw a Gantt Chart as a control device. Draw the chart; include it in the backup documentation for your report.

Do all of this carefully. It may be necessary to modify the schedule of activities from that which you had originally developed.
This section should be about 1-2 pages.
 
 

Section 10 Program Evaluation

The Dunes PD has never had a community program before. In the past, police officers were allowed to make many decisions and take many actions without adequate supervision or control. Therein lies the reason for so many of the problems that have plagued the city in the past. Some old hands in the department are dubious about the enterprise. They do not think Community Oriented Policing is the answer. You, however, do not think that your new section can possibly do any worse. The Safety Director publicly supports you in your efforts to build the new unit. However, privately, she has told you that she is dubious, too. She is going to give you two years to prove that you can make a go of it. But, if you fail, she will recommend returning to the old organization and system. Realizing that you will be called upon to defend the Community Services Bureau’s performance, you decide to evaluate it and to generate written reports demonstrating that performance. Your task is to develop an evaluation program for the new unit. Sketch out how you would go about this. Be as specific as possible.

This part of the exercise should not take more than three pages.
 
 

Section 11 Providing Transportation for the Community Services Bureau

You have to decide how your new Community Services Bureau officers will get around: other than the foot patrol/community stations, they must have transportation. You have two options: lease vehicles or buy them. You call around to the local dealerships and find that the type of automobile that best meets your requirements is the six-cylinder Chevrolet Lumina. The dealer gives you the following information regarding the costs of purchasing as opposed to leasing a Lumina. [Note: given the public bidding laws, you are just doing the background research for putting together a recommendation to your boss, the department director. You will only be submitting one recommendation. For you, cost is the critical factor. However, you know that your boss has her own preferences. She leases an automobile now and is often heard extolling the virtues of leasing.]

Comparison of Purchasing and Leasing a Chevrolet Lumina

                                        Leasing                                                   Purchasing

Total Costs:                       N/A                                                      $17,800

Monthly Payment                (a) $399 1st year                                    NA
Security Deposit (b)
Mileage Adjustment (c)

O & M Costs:

Gasoline mileage               (d) 19 mi/gallon                                     19 mi/gallon
Oil Change (e)                    @ 3000 mi.                                          @ 3000 mi.
Tune Up                                  $50                                                        $50

Title & Plates                          $72                                                         $72
Insurance (f)
Purchase Residual (g)                                                                            N/A

Notes:

a  The dealer is willing to give you a discount on the monthly payments for each year beyond the first one. The discount rate is 2.5 percent reduction on the previous year’s monthly payment amount.

b   The security deposit for a Chevrolet Lumina is figured by rounding the monthly payment down to the nearest $25 and adding $1000.

c    The monthly lease payment remains constant for the entire year unless the mileage amount exceeds 13,000 in a year. If the car was leased for only one year, there is an adjustment to cover the increased depreciation on the car. It is figured at one percent of the monthly payment per thousand miles over the 13,000 mile allotment. The mileage adjustment can be paid in cash at the end of the lease period or rolled into the next year’s monthly lease payments.

d    The current price of gasoline is $2.75 per gallon.

e    The going price for an oil change is $35.

f     Dunes is self-insured. Insurance costs on either option do not come out of your budget.

g    At the leaser’s option, (s)he can buy the car leased by paying the residual costs, the original purchase price minus all costs paid in lease payments.
 

Using this information, you are to figure which is the better option for your division--lease or purchase. The city has a habit of keeping its vehicles for ten years. Which is the more cost-effective means of securing transportation for your new section? [Include the computations you made. What method did you use to make the decision?]

The problem gets more complicated regardless of which option is the most cost-effective. You know your department director is partial to leasing. You also know that she is not easily swayed.

Is there enough information provided for you to make your decision? If not, what else is needed? You are to draw the resulting schematic on a sheet of paper and include it as backup documentation to your report.

Note: this part of the exercise should not take you more than three pages to complete.
 

**This practical exercise is adapted from one created and used by Dr. Charles Washington, Cleveland State University, 1990.

Summary of instructions

Each of you will be responsible to complete the practical exercise independently. This exercise is meant to allow you to experience what it might be like to work and experiment with the kinds of decisions that public managers [not agency heads, but ordinary working managers] come up against in their practice. The exercise has no absolutely ‘correct’ or ‘true’ answer. There are pros and cons for any choice you make. The key is to apply your intellect and your style preferences, and especially, your creative imagination, to the kinds of routine problems which make their home in the public sector.

The completed exercise will consist of: the executive summary, the divisional status report [including planning for the reorganization] and backup documentation [including charts, graphs, worksheets, spreadsheets, memos, etc.], with a cover page for the purposes of identifying course number, student, student number and date. Hint: The order in which the sections have been presented is the order for your completed project. However, you will not truly be able to write them in that order. Budgets and executive summaries appear first, but are constructed last.

You are reminded of the following:

Whatever you decide in any of the sections, the whole plan of action must be internally consistent and reasonably do-able. Make all your documentation as ‘real’ as possible--reflecting the interconnection between various phases of the manager’s role in a public organization.

While creative solutions to the problems posed in the exercise will reap substantial rewards, it is the justification you provide for choices which will carry the day.

You are encouraged to reflect and research at length on this project. This exercise represents a significant portion of your grade for this course. Do not attempt to do it in the week before it's due--work on it throughout the semester.

I am looking forward to learning from your solutions, not only how well you have absorbed the persona of the Police Chief of Dunes, Indiana, and the concepts and theories presented in this course and others, but also some new and fresh approaches to the problems we, as managers and teachers, come up against in our practices.

Good Luck!
 
 
 

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