By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

DOWNTOWN - Cincinnati City Manager Valerie Lemmie has identified nine city services - ranging from janitorial to mowing and litter control - for possible privatization.

The services now employ 161 city employees and cost taxpayers $16 million a year.

City Council believes that the two-year-old system of "managed competition" - forcing city employees to bid against the private sector to do the work - could save millions.

Lemmie is calling the effort "Value Cincinnati." In a report to City Council Wednesday, she said consultants and city supervisors had identified the following services as the best candidates for competition:

• Printing services - $1.6 million and 13 employees.

• Mowing, litter control, facility cleaning and playgrounds - $3.4 million and 85 employees.

• Fleet services, auto parts management - $4 million and seven employees.

• Fueling services - $3 million and one employee.

• Computer help desk - $400,000 and six employees.

• Recycling - $2.1 million (already contracted out to Rumpke Co.)

• Yard waste collection - $580,000 and 15 employees.

• Janitorial services - $400,000 and 17 employees.

• Downtown street cleaning - $590,000 and 17 employees.

The services were selected based on the number of possible outside vendors, the ability to write clear specifications for the work, and the potential cost savings.

Councilman Pat DeWine, a Republican who has championed the process as a way to save money and improve services, said the report was only slightly encouraging.

"It's a step in the right direction, but it's very slow. The recommendations they made were very tepid," he said. "All those are fine, but there are a lot more big-ticket items they ought to be looking at."

At the top of DeWine's list: the city's $9.7 million garbage collection operation, and the $5.2 million operating cost for parking facilities.

Savings from the competitive program were expected to be big enough to save the city's $2.1 million curbside recycling program. Lemmie has recommended cutting it in 2004 to balance the budget.

But Mayor Charlie Luken urged City Council members to temper their expectations.

"The numbers that were thrown around about how much we were going to save were not realistic," he said. "I'd rather focus on efficiency."

For example, savings from the street-sweeping contract - the only service the city has bid out under the process - have been put back into sweeping 48 percent more curb-miles.

"The reason I supported street sweeping is because we weren't doing a very good job of it," Luken said. "I haven't heard any complaints about picking up the garbage."

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com