“Right sizing” and cost-saving innovations in government September 1
In case you missed them, here are two recent news stories about making government services more streamlined and efficient…
Yesterday’s Kennebec Journal featured an interview with retiring state controller Ed Karass, who had accumulated 28 years’ worth of service to Maine’s state government. He brings a lot of perspective to the issue of Maine’s state spending. Just before retiring, Karass testified to the state’s Appropriations Committee and told them that, “rather than continue to try to rely on consolidation of operations, the merging of operations, which may save a marginal amount of money in the short term, they really needed to determine what government should look like over the next several years.”
Although Karass is enthusiastic about the new school district consolidation law: “I think instead of [cutting down to] 80 school districts, [Baldacci] should have been braver and gone for 16.”
He also offered these sobering thoughts on the next four years:
I think the next governor really has his or her work cut out for him or her.
I would like to see a governor that, and a Legislature, more than balance the budget. They need to address the liabilities that are building up … in the retirement system, retiree health. We need to look at replenishing our cash and come up with a plan to repair the state’s General Fund balance sheet.
It’s going to be a difficult position to be in because the (federal stimulus funds) will be sunsetting, the economy hopefully will be at a turnaround.
But in all reality, the governor coming in will not be able to cut taxes, will not be able to expand programs and will have to concentrate on putting the state’s fiscal house back in order…
This is not something we will grow our way out of.
Notwithstanding Karass’s skepticism of consolidation, today’s Portland Press Herald has an interesting story about the school districts of Portland, South Portland, and Westbrook sharing bus maintenance facilities, coordinating vocational courses, and partnering on staff development in order to blunt the impacts of anticipated budget costs.
Portland’s new superintendent, Jim Morse, had this to say about the initiative: “We tried to pick things that were natural areas of collaboration… A lot of this isn’t rocket science. It’s just getting past tradition.”