There is a sure-fire way to break in a baseball glove.

Take a baseball, put it into the glove’s ”pocket,” tie the glove tightly, and let it sit for a day.

If only breaking in a group of people with the goal of finding cost-savings measures were as easy as a baseball glove.

It seems that one of the lessons that has been learned during the past year by the Joint Task Force on Efficiency and Cost Reduction is it took some time before they were ”broken in.” By this, they needed to have similar knowledge on how city government and the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities work before understanding how to develop solutions to problems.

The task force, which consists of both city and BPU officials, was formed in November 2014 by Sam Teresi, Jamestown mayor. The mayor set five goals for the task force to accomplish: To review cost-saving measures suggested by the BPU, Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce and the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier for city government; an in-depth look at the structure and cost of services being delivered by the five utilities at the BPU; reviewing the possibility of consolidating customer service operations to lessen redundancy; reviewing the possibility of consolidating legal services; and to analyze the revenue sharing between the BPU’s electric and water divisions toward the city’s general fund.

In the first year of the task force, only one of these goals was accomplished.

However, just because officials from the two entities gathered at the same table didn’t mean each had the same information. Since January 2015, the task force has met 10 times, with each meeting averaging around 90 minutes. Both city and BPU officials agree they have had great discussions during these meetings on the issues, but few solutions. One reason for not accomplishing several goals is because much of the discussion centered around why the city was facing severe financial problems, but not how to find solutions.

On Tuesday, David Leathers, BPU general manager, brought a report that was an overview from BPU staff to task force members about the meetings the task force and its health insurance subcommittee have had for more than a year. One bullet point in the overview states the discussions appear to involve the generally accepted reason why costs are increasing so dramatically, the work that has been accomplished in the past, the barriers to drive change now and the couple of items being worked on to make changes or improvements.

Another bullet point states the discussion doesn’t appear to involve: Detailed data analysis; a root cause understanding of benefit and cost drivers; current-year priorities; action assignments; and targeted timing.

The overall goal for the task force shouldn’t be analyzing stats and information, but leaving those duties to the staffs at city government and at the BPU, Leathers said. He said developing concepts needs to be what the task force handles.

Anthony Dolce, Ward 2 councilman and task force chairman, agreed with Leathers that much of the discussion during the past year has been about why costs are high. However, he said now that the explanations have been given, the group can move forward with setting priorities and action steps to accomplish goals.

Leathers also discussed his belief that Teresi should possibly be part of the meetings. He said being the leader of city government, he has a lot of insight into what needs to be done to accomplish goals. Dolce said that the mayor is more than willing to attend the task force meetings if invited.