DeKalb CEO unveils 408-page operations review; commissioners defer formal adoption 30 days

DeKalb County CEO Cochran Johnson and consultants Malden and Jenkins presented an operational and performance assessment of 18 county departments to the County Operations Committee and the item was deferred for 30 days to allow commissioners time to review the report and prepare questions.

The assessment, completed by Malden and Jenkins at the CEO's request, reviewed 18 of the county's 34 departments, involved 171 interviews, 38 workshops, 13 job-shadowing sessions and 22 facility tours, and produced a 408-page report containing 266 observations and recommendations. The consultants classified 69 recommendations as “quick wins,” and reported that 3.8% of findings were strengths, 7.7% were risks, 21.9% opportunities and 66.6% inconsistencies or issues that need remediation.

The study used a five-level maturity model developed by Malden and Jenkins. The average maturity score across the 18 departments was 2.8, between “compliant” and “formally governed.” The highest-scoring offices included the medical examiner, fire rescue and police; purchasing and contracting scored the lowest with a level 1. David Roberts of Malden and Jenkins said the team compared each department to leading practices and emphasized the need for consistency, KPIs and better use of technology.

"We engaged more than 330 county employees and reviewed more than 1,700 documents," Roberts said in his presentation. "Out of the 266 recommendations, approximately 69 are quick wins which the county can implement immediately." Roberts also recommended a programmatic work plan, leadership branding for the transformation and ongoing assessments to track progress.

CEO Cochran Johnson framed the assessment as a priority of her administration and told commissioners that some remedial steps are already underway: procurement policies that had not been updated since 2014 are being revised with the National Institute for Government Procurement, code compliance has been restructured to address evening enforcement needs and a county productivity dashboard pilot has been rolled out to track business licenses, inspections and other operational metrics in real time.

"This document is justification. We need a person to own this," the CEO said, describing a proposed change manager or single point of accountability to coordinate implementation across departments. She cautioned that some recommendations will require funding and said total implementation would require careful prioritization because new technology and staffing requests will carry costs.

Committee members asked about timelines, sampling and methodology; Roberts said job-shadowing focused on field-heavy functions and that the maturity model is Malden and Jenkins’ government-tailored tool while the recommendations refer to industry-leading practices. Commissioners also pressed for follow-up: the CEO proposed quarterly committee reporting on implementation and said she and the consultant would return with a proposed change-manager approach and implementation roadmap.

The County Operations Committee voted to defer formal adoption of the report for 30 days to allow commissioners time to digest the full document and to permit staff to return with additional implementation details. The committee chair said she expected the CEO to return within the deferral period with a proposed accountability structure and next steps.