Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 1, 1993 TAG: 9303010233
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WHAT? EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT?
PRESIDENT Clinton's economic-reform plan comes, with good reason, as a package deal. It clearly won't work if tax increases are applied to just higher spending, rather than to a real effort to shrink the deficit.Just as important as cutting the budget here and there, though, is Clinton's stated wish to reshape and redirect government, to make it more efficient.
It is thus promising that White House aides are said to be studying efforts Texas has made to reform its state budget.
Facing in 1991 a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, state officials there underwent a comprehensive audit that examined 195 areas of government operations. From a $30 billion dollar budget, the audit exacted $2.4 billion in savings with a package of job and spending cuts, new fees and agency consolidations.
But the overhaul of the bureaucracy aimed not to just save money: The idea also was to set the government on a different course and improve services.
Based on themes Clinton has discussed under the rubric of "reinventing government," the reform's thrust was to do what many private business are attempting: cut layers of management, reconnect with customers (in this case, taxpayers), give more power to front-line workers.
John Sharp, Texas' comptroller, assembled a team that spent five months producing what was called "Breaking the mold: New ways to govern Texas." Auditors uncovered the usual litany of horror stories: a $38,000 conference table bought by the Texas Teacher Retirement System, for example. But the team dug deeper, and enlisted crucial help from rank-and-file state employees.
"The people who really provide the services, the lower-level government workers, know where it's screwed up, and it's usually screwed up at the top," Sharp told The Washington Post. "The last thing you want to do is contract this out and turn it over to the usual . . . experts."
The audit examined government by functions, rather than by departments, looking for opportunities to eliminate overlap and upgrade services. The team also studied ways to restructure incentives - for example, to reward managers who come in under budget.
An interesting model, in short, for Washington reformers. The Post quotes Bruce Reed, deputy assistant to President Clinton for domestic policy, describing a marvelous development, if true:
"I think the members of the Cabinet are well aware that, in contrast to past administrations, where power may have been judged on the basis of how much budget authority or staff you could accumulate, this president will judge his Cabinet's efforts by how well they help him reinvent government."
Clinton has made a start, of course, calling for the elimination of 100,000 jobs from the federal work force, cutting the White House staff by 25 percent, and ordering a 14 percent cut in administrative overhead over the next four years.
It's unclear at this stage whether the administration or, in particular, Congress will sustain enthusiasm for shrinking the federal bureaucracy. But, as his interest in Texas suggests, Clinton does seem serious about wanting to make efficient government less of an oxymoron.
Notwithstanding the preceding succession of conservative administrations, these sorts of efforts have not been tried with conspicuous success in the past.
Sharp reportedly took considerable pains to convince Texans in and out of government that his was a serious endeavor. "There must be a body count, a specific number of programs eliminated, and teeth on the sidewalk," he says.
Will teeth fall on Washington sidewalks? They'll have to, if reinventing government is to prove more than a policy-wonk president's happy talk.