DeKalb committee hears operational-assessment update; staff targets 2026 for full implementation

Consultants and county staff told the DeKalb County Operations Committee on Thursday that implementation of the Malden & Jenkins operational assessment is underway and that 2026 is the year staff expect to address the full set of recommendations across county departments.

Lakeisha Cisse, presenting implementation progress for the consulting team, said the operational assessment spanned 18 departments and identified 266 issues countywide; for the departments that report to the operations committee she said there are 56 recommendations, of which one is complete and nine have been identified as "quick wins." Cisse said most recommendations are agreed to in principle but remain "not started" because departments cited vacancies, funding dependencies and workload constraints as barriers.

Cisse described a governance and implementation-management process that begins with one-on-one department action planning early next year. She said the consulting team is building dashboards of key performance measures and expects to surface resource needs and potential budget requests to the CEO and Board as necessary. Under the process, she said, departmental disagreements over recommendations will be escalated to COO Williams and, if needed, to the CEO and the Board for a final decision.

Commissioners asked whether budget submissions will reflect operational needs and whether the survey's "disagree" responses correspond to items that will be rejected or blocked. Cisse said the team will re-check correlation formulas and use one-on-one sessions to gather specific departmental insight. COO Williams said staff will try to restructure existing budgets where possible before seeking new funds.

What’s next: staff will begin department-specific action planning at the top of 2026, prepare data dashboards for the committees and surface budget or resourcing requests through the county’s regular budget process.