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GOAL 4n, Improve Government Efficiency and <br />Effectiveness <br />Rationale <br />As our community grows and our collective needs change and expand, many of our expectations <br />of government services have also grown. Without question, we demand more services from local <br />government and the public schools today. In North Carolina, the most constant and reliable <br />revenue source to provide services is the property tax, and as such, our levels of service and our <br />choice to fund excellent school systems often leads to increased property taxes. <br />As property taxes rise governments are pressured to provide services more efficiently at lower <br />costs. "Efficient' service could be defined as productive of desired effects without waste of time <br />and materials. Unless we are willing to forego certain services, or accept cutbacks in education <br />priorities, tax increases will likely continue to be a part of our foreseeable future. As this occurs, <br />governments will continue to be pressured to look at innovative ways to cut costs by reducing <br />waste and inefficiencies. <br />Providing services efficiently with reduced waste, can help achieve our sustainability goals. <br />However, it is important to note the possibility of conflict between what may be fiscally most <br />efficient and what is most sustainable. In such cases there is a great need to balance the impacts <br />and remember that decisions that move the county away from being a sustainable community <br />will (or are likely to) have negative impacts that are never quantified and put into the fiscal <br />equation. For example, if one bases a decision on whether to buy recycled paper solely on cost <br />of the paper, one would be forgetting the external cost of cutting down more trees to make the <br />new, "cheaper" paper. These externalities that are left out of the equation may or may not be <br />quantifiable, much as the value of a forest in terms of providing wildlife habitat or aesthetic <br />value is difficult to quantify. Our vision of future government services must then be cognizant <br />that some "efficiencies" are best foregone for other, long -term benefits. <br />The Task Force finds that there are current programs and future opportunities to improve <br />efficiency in service provision and government spending recommended below. <br />Wj <br />