CONSUMER GOVERNMENT

About the Book

THE MUNICIPAL BUSINESS SYSTEM VIA THE ART OF FULL DISCLOSURE The above titled Book is intended to change the way local governments do NOT do "business". It is predicated on and dedicated to an achieved fact: There is NO compelling reason why cities, counties and government special districts cannot be run better than private businesses are alleged to operate. Local Government can be superior! Further, there is no reason for municipal services to be gutted as is being done and advocated, and/or “outsourced” for ideological and unknown undocumented “cost-saving” reasons. It is time local government defended itself against massive misinformation and lack of supporting data. Cities can, and should be “run like a business”. This Book details the adaptation of corporate “line-of-business profit & loss” corporate accounting to municipal services.

The MUNICIPAL BUSINESS SYSTEM, explained in detail in this Book, has provided billions of new revenues to 250+ governments. Better yet, those monies were retrieved from those improperly benefitting from tax-supported direct benefit services. Previously, influential persons and organizations were subsidized by taxes paid by everyone. By providing a highly detailed inventory of services, then full costing information for each to the public and their elected representatives, huge amounts of tax monies were repatriated. Those monies were diverted from those who should pay fees, and returned to pay for services provided to the community at large. Thus Police, Fire, EMS, parks, recreation, library, street maintenance, and agreed-to social services were resuscitated. Through the MUNICIPAL BUSINESS SYSTEM process the tax and fee-paying public is provided detailed full disclosure of revenue, cost-of-service, and quality information for the hundreds of local services provided by most cities and counties. And choice if, when, how, and quantity provided. Thus re-inventing the manner in which taxes are used and service levels defined.

At last, there is a SYSTEM to utilize computerization capabilities fully to provide a rationale and reasons for not cutting municipal budgets or privatizing local services, and thus destroying local government, its protections and services. Importantly, taxes paid by all can be utilized solely to finance services benefitting ALL, not subsidizing just the few to retain special local service benefits solely for personal, corporate, or business purposes, at the expense of the community at large.

The Author utilized his decades of experience and knowledge acquired in-the-trenches to develop, refine, and apply the MUNICIPAL BUSINESS SYSTEM. He now shares with others what was labored over for 40 years of development by a corps of dedicated municipal employees, and ultimately with a brilliant group of financial analysts and CPAs, who designed and implemented the detailed highly sophisticated but simply computerized MUNICIPAL BUSINESS SYSTEM. Then Ayres taught the "how" at three major universities for 15 years. The Book provides sufficient textual overview, explanation, specific illustrations, examples, and details to know and control the cost of all services throughout the entirety of local - and maybe even state - governments.

Douglas W. Ayres, MPA, LLD spent eight years with the University of Chicago's National Governmental Center (PAS) conducting scores of consulting engagements around the U.S., Canada and in Venezuela. He served as Town Clerk/Assistant Town Manager of Salem, Virginia; City Manager of Melbourne, Florida (Cape Canaveral); City Treasurer/Assistant City Manager, then City Manager of Salem, Oregon. As City Manager of Inglewood, California he installed the computerized MUNICIPAL BUSINESS SYSTEM. As a USC Graduate School Professor he taught Public Finance for 15 years, and for 25 years spread the SYSTEM to 250+ local governments via consulting firms - DWA, Inc.; Management Services, Inc. (MSI); and Ayres & Ayres, Inc. On retirement, Revenue Cost Specialists (RCS) succeeded Doug, further developing the MUNICIPAL BUSINESS SYSTEM and its software as specifically presented and then dissected in CONSUMER GOVERNMENT VIA THE ART OF FULL DISCLOSURE. The book can be purchased for $17.48 at www.bookstore.trafford.com or at www.consumergovernment.com or in 8½ x 11” spiral lay-flat for $40 from Douglas W. Ayres, 10 Thunder Road, Sedona, AZ 86351-9205 928/284-9306 or 928/202-0222 or FAX 928/284-1855 PM SHORT ARTICLE

About the Author

Doug Ayres was reared up a holler in far eastern West Virginia. He led the usual life for the first 18 years of, participating in local events that in the 1930's and '40's were typical in an isolated mountain Town of 1,800. WWII provided lucative employment -- at 30 cents/lhour -- and enough savings for Doug to pay for three years of college. Not having any idea of what he wanted to do with his life, he took the "usual" way out of West Virginia -- he joined the U.S. Army. There he was trained as a truck mechanic, but served in the four year non-GI Bill between WWII and the Korea "Police Action". He was on his own. Five days after honorable discharge in Ft. Lewis, Washington, Doug enrolled at Roanoke College, in Salem, Virginia. Not wanting to go back to West Virginia for that first summer, on April 1, 1950 he discovered his fascination and soon, love, for local government. He then worked for the Town Manager of Salem, Virginia, and as an "indentured servant reading for the law" with the Town Attdorney, every available hour for the next seven years. That 35 cents per hour paid for his senior year of college. Having exhausted all courses even remotely connected to local government, Doug relucatantly transferred from Roanoke College to the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Work for the Town of Salem continued thru graduation Phi Beta Kappa from Carolina. And with a USAF commission as a Distringuished Military Graduate (DMG). Then on to the Maxwell School of Syracuse University for an MPA on a "full load academic fellowship". On graduation, after an internship with the City of Richmond, Virgilnia, Doug became Town Clerk and Assistant Town Clerk of Salem, Virginia. From there Doug's work career was absolutely and totally dedicated to the improvement of local government. He spent the remainder of his life so involved, which ultimately led to this Book -- CONSUMER GOVERNMENT via The Art of Full Disclosure. The Book is a practical how-to that followed, most likely could lead to the salvation of local government and all city and county services in the U.S. and Canada. Doug has lived in Sedona, Arizona since retirement there in 1996. He and wife Pamela Swift Ayres have lived interesting -- some would say fascinating -- careers and lives. Doug has written three books about his local government experiences, and two about Pam and his power boat navigation of all four coasts of North America and the vast majority of its navigable rivers, lakes, canals, and waterways.