A team charged with evaluating the efficiency of Anne Arundel County functions has released its first set of recommendations — a list that includes outsourcing Anne Arundel’s animal shelter and asking government agencies to bid some of their services alongside private industry.

The Commission on Government Innovation and Effectiveness recently presented its preliminary report to County Executive Steve Schuh, who said in a statement he would evaluate the suggestions over the summer “to determine how to best ensure an efficient county government for our citizens.”

Schuh formed the commission in December with the goal of conducting a “wholesale review of every department and operation” to find opportunities to reduce budget costs and limit expansion of the government’s workforce by contracting with the private sector where it would be cost-effective to do so.

The nine-member group, which includes several former state and county government officials as well as local businesspeople, found overall that county departments are performing well given their resources.

The report notes that “the need to pay market rates combined with profit requirements is likely to make county-offered services more cost-effective.”

Claire Louder, the commission’s executive director, said the commission is recommending side-by-side bidding only for government functions that are not considered fundamental — police services and zoning inspections, for example, would not be bid out.

Louder said having departments produce bids for some services they traditionally have performed in-house would give the county a clear cost comparison between government and private business.

“It seems like a lot of our agencies are doing a really good job,” she said, but “taxpayers think there’s a lot of inefficiency in government. We didn’t find that, but if