One area of cost control procedures that was particularly surprising is that while about half of the departments maintain equipment items for other departments, less than half of those departments bill the other department for maintenance work. That means the superintendent must absorb the cost of maintaining "non-department" equipment in a tightening budget. Free maintenance helps other city departments, like police or fire, but burdens the maintenance facilities of the street department and robs them of valuable maintenance dollars.

Even though most city governments operate with one pot of money, cost accounting allocates true costs to individual departments. For the public works or street department, funding is simply too critical to absorb costs, such as free maintenance. Further, operating a department that is one of the largest city budget items and not having the tools to effectively manage costs is foolhardy. The demand is too great and the resources too limited.

The secret to an effective cost control system is that it must be used. The superintendent must have access to information and not have to be a "rocket scientist" to obtain it. For a superintendent, cost control information isn't "accounting" information. It's Operational information. Logging on to the big computer at City Hall isn't the solution, if the system fails to give the superintendent meaningful operational information.