In conducting the preliminary screening, there were four major things that we considered. Remember that we began this screening with a list of almost 40 departments, and that the purpose of this step was to narrow the list to a more manageable size, so that we can further investigate departments for which we think there might be a potential for change in the service delivery method.

The first item that we thought about when was the degree of control that is held by the local government. We did this because we believe that the situations are much less interesting if there is low local control. In particular, we eliminated all of the row offices because of this criteria, as we were uninterested in dealing with elected offices. This also applies to the course and the board of county commissioners.

Second, we considered the availability of alternative service delivery methods. We are most interested in cases such as the jails, where there are readily available alternative service providers. Eliminated as a result of this criteria were departments such as elections and the civil service commission, as we are unaware of any organization that would be willing to provide these services, outside of government.

Third, we chose to look at services which have significant financial implications meaning that we prefer large budgets to small ones. Filtered out as a result of this item were departments such as XXXX & XXXX.

Finally, we considered the funding sources of the different departments. Specifically, we believe that departments and services funded locally have a higher priority than those funded from external sources. This selection criteria filtered out the YYY & YYY departments.