Elgin could pay employees extra for innovative ideas to help city

Editor's note: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Sara Sabo's name.

Elgin city staff members are proposing creating a new "innovation fund" designed to elicit ideas from employees to make the city more efficient.

Cities across the country are beginning to allocate resources to encourage innovation that leads to cost savings. For example, Baltimore has invested about $7.1 million in its innovation fund since 2012, according to an article in Government Finance Review.

City Manager Sean Stegall said that in its first year, $20,000 or $30,000 "would make sense" for an innovation fund in Elgin. "It's going to start very slowly, because (the concept) is so different and it's hard to find things that really fit that," he said.

The money would be used to test ideas practically and see if they work. Employees whose ideas are successfully implemented would get rewarded, whether monetarily or otherwise, Stegall said.

Members of the strategic plan advisory commission said at their meeting last week that they liked the concept of creating an innovation fund, although no specific money amounts were discussed. The commission is expected to approve in October a formal resolution in support of the concept, which city staff members then will present to the city council as part of the 2016 budget process.

Innovation funds are meant to be self-sustaining, as savings generated by new ideas are funneled back into the fund, Stegall said.

Still, there's an inherent degree of risk in the concept, which means being OK with "the possibility of failure in the pursuit of excellence," senior management analyst Dan Ault said.

"We're not talking about being reckless," Ault said. "We are talking about things that have a very good chance of improving community services, of improving the city in general."

Strategic plan commissioner Sara Sabo said she likes the idea of encouraging all employees, not only department heads, to come forward with ideas. "You want everybody thinking that way, and that's a tough cultural shift to make."

One obvious area is technology, as cities generally have struggled to keep up with what is available, Ault said. Elgin fares better than most - such as with its 311 system - but there is constant room for growth and improvement, he said.

Innovation isn't only about technology - it's also about better ways to perform tasks and streamline processes, Ault said. "The point of the innovation fund is to knock down walls of thinking, 'I can't do something,' " he said. "That's what stifles innovation."

Exactly how the innovation fund would work - how employees would submit ideas, who would evaluate them and give the OK for development - will be determined in the future, senior management analyst Laura Valdez-Wilson said.

The city could look for grant opportunities to fund innovation, or even use crowd funding, Commissioner Dustin Good said.