Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 26, 1994 TAG: 9402250030
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But not all government systems need overhauling and downsizing.red-tape trimming and waste eliminating isn't all there is to the idea. Many needIt also means innovation and innervatingenergizing to solvegovernmental sytstems, so they can better tackle society's problems. for society. That's what good government - which need not be (notan oxymoron - ought to be about. and,When public employees are allowed to try creative approaches, it's what good government can be about.
In 1986, the Ford Foundation and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government joined forces to encourage creative thinking by state and local public employees, through an annual awards program for innovative programs. Winners have included two Virginia- based programs, including one that provides medical care for children in Fairfax and another involving bilingual outreach in Arlington.
These programs give lie to a common misconception that bureaucrats are hidebound and lethargic, more interested in paper-pushing and preserving encrusted old ways than in serving government's customers, the public. As Michael Lipsky, who's in charge of the awards program at the Ford Foundation, put it: "One of the things we haven't given up in American government is the possibility of redemption - that people can change."
In the years since the awards program has been in existence, public workers in state and local agencies have come up with numerous creative ideas that have made government programs more effective and more user-friendly, and, yes, that in some instances, have saved money for taxpayers.
Often, they've found and implemented innovative approaches despite their bosses rather than because of bosses' encouragement. Lipsky recalls some innovators saying, "Nobody was watching me and no one cared [so] I got away with it."
Of course, the bosses - agency heads of agencies and elected officials - shouldought to care. They shouldought to recognize, as President Clinton has observed, that "no one is more frustrated by bureaucracy than the workers who deal with it everyday and who know better than anyone how to fix it. Employees at the front lines know how to make government work, if someone will listen."
Early indications suggest that Virginia's new Gov. George Allen governor is prepared to listen. George Allen's first act as governor was to empanel a blue-ribbon strike force whose mission, he says, will be to not only look not only for ways to make government leaner, but also for ways to make it work better. Allen has made a point of publicly inviting state workers to contact the panel - the showcase for his own plans to reinvent state government - and to present their ideas.
Meanwhile, Allen might want to consider one of the programs that won 1993 Innovations in State and Local Government Awards. In Columbia, S.C., financial incentives were offered to police officers to buy, renovate and live in homes in the inner-city neighborhoods thatthey patrol.
Allen is making public safety and crime control a top priority; he has also promised to pay special attention to the problems of inner cities. He obviously holds no is notdeep-seated philosophically opposedopposition to investment incentives, since he says he'll propose fiscally responsible incentives to encourage businesses to create jobs in Virginia.
The program in Columbia might be a model that would fit nicely with Allen's anti-crime and inner-city initiatives. At the least, he ought to give it some creativeinnovative, energizing thinkingthought.
by CNB