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Paul
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Alumni
Newsmakers: Paul Campbell '00
Campbell
helps save taxpayers $529 million
When
Paul Campbell '00 joined the Illinois Department of
Central Management Services as assistant director in February
2003, there were 43 different e-mail systems in use by the
state government — practically one for each agency.
Under
the mandate of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, CMS was directed to work
with other government agencies to streamline their administrative
tasks and give the agencies more time and resources to concentrate
on the public services they provide. "What you had prior
to the Blagojevich administration was a highly decentralized
approach," says Campbell, and that approach allowed all
manner of inefficient practices, procedures and rogue e-mail
systems to flourish.
Campbell
has been the director of CMS since June 2005. During that
time, confirms a recent Deloitte study, CMS helped save Illinois
taxpayers more than $529 million.
"That
was a lot of low-hanging fruit," says Campbell of the
half-billion savings. He adds that there is no shortage of
bureaucracy keeping the state busy. "We still have 109
different accounting systems, 38 different HR systems and
five different payroll systems."
Campbell
is confident that CMS's efforts to bring private-sector best
practices to government will translate into better services
for Illinois taxpayers. "If I learned one thing at Kellogg,"
he says, "it's that if you don't focus on your core competency,
you're out of luck."
Under
Campbell's oversight, CMS also led a number of initiatives
aimed at bringing more small businesses into state contracts,
increasing diversity in hiring of government employees and
improving the state's emergency-response capabilities.
Campbell
says his Kellogg education was great training for his work
across agencies. "The requirement to work in teams, to
work collaboratively, was such an emphasis throughout the
two years [at Kellogg]. There's no better example of the need
to work collaboratively than in state government." —
AH
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