City Hall Gets More Efficient, Despite Hurricane

AS the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina subsided, the city of New Orleans
faced a new deluge: requests from contractors and homeowners for permits to
rebuild thousands of homes, businesses and municipal buildings.

But the
city government was suffering its own crisis. Apart from the physical havoc the
hurricane wreaked, much of the staff was gone, seeking refuge in other states.
The city's inspection and permits team was less than half the size of its
pre-hurricane level, while demand for permits was far greater than before.

What New Orleans needed was an efficiency rarely seen in even the
best-run governments. So it turned to the Internet, where
business-to-government commerce, involving transactions and other procedures, is
becoming more common. The city's experience is the most notable example of how
such transactions are faring . . .

The are processing 625 permits per day today vs. 45 permits per day prior to the storm. The efficiencies gained are over 1300%. Imagine the waste that was going on prior to the storm.