State should mimic Camden County's "Transformation Initiative' to save taxpayers' money.

Sometimes elected officials like to say they're "leaving no stone unturned" in looking for ways to cut the cost of government and hold the line on taxes. It sounds good to voters, whose biggest concern is often their taxes.

Leaving no stone unturned means just that not only turning over the big rocks to look for millions of dollars in savings, but also the tiny pebbles to look for a few thousand dollars here and there.

In Camden County, that's exactly what's happening. The county's Transformation Initiative has been going on for nearly a year, identifying ways to consolidate and share services across every spectrum and agency of the county government. It's everything from melding together various human resources departments to bulk purchasing basic supplies like paper and soap for all agencies and institutions. It's figuring out the cost-per-unit of services such as landscaping or cleaning the floors and then getting those things done at the lowest possible cost.

Camden County is establishing a model that other counties and that the state government ought to try. It's a model that doesn't call for hiring a pricey outside firm for millions of dollars -- Camden County College Vice President of Administrative Service Louis Bezich is leading the investigation for the county and has help from a small team of interns and various department heads throughout the county government.

The county is already seeing real savings, and not one-shot kind of savings, but permanent savings that will come off the budget year after year.

Certainly, some of the changes being made are modest. Combining some of the printed publications various Camden County entities put out over the course of a year and using more in-house printing resources rather than sending things to outside printers is expected to save $300,000 a year. That's a drop in the bucket compared with the county government's 2009 operating budget of $326 million.

But printing consolidation is just one of many initiatives highlighted in the Transformation Initiative's third quarter progress report. Other initiatives that are moving forward include:

Pooling property and casualty insurance among the county's various bodies such as the county college, library system and utilities authority for an annual savings of about $1 million.

Consolidating various building security functions and contracts for an annual savings of about $1 million.

Putting in place new human resources policies and practices to cut down on absenteeism by county workers. Savings here could easily be in the millions in terms of lost man hours.

Taken alone, none of the individual changes being adopted would put a dent in county spending. But, put together, the county is looking at saving tens of millions of dollars each year. That is significant. It's something taxpayers in Camden County should welcome.

New Gov. Chris Christie is facing an unprecedented budget deficit of up to $11 billion for the next fiscal year that begins July 1. To close the gap, Christie is already talking about major cuts in Trenton. Perhaps his administration should take a good look at what Camden County is doing. There are savings to be had by combining many back-office functions and they're not even that painful.