Today's Minneapolis Star Tribune notes the efforts of Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton to cut waste in state government by employing consultants to review operations. Twenty-two firms have been approved for such work, promising total savings of $20 million or more.
However, on a two-year budget of $35 billion, even savings in the the tens of millions--however welcome--won't make a significant difference to the state's fiscal situation.
Having served recently in state government, I have no doubt that improvements could be made. Perhaps 1 to 2 percent of the budget (hundreds of millions) could be saved by simply adopting modern management techniques and information technology from the last twenty years.
To make a real dent in our structural deficit, we need to either stop doing some things entirely or to do many things in entirely new ways.
Over on the Star Tribune's Business page, Chuck Slocum writes in an opinion piece that "Businesses Support Government Redesign." That's good news, because we are going to need all the support we can get when we actually get around to redesigning state government. We will need to achieve savings of $ billions, not $ millions, and there are bound to be winners and losers in the process. You can bet we will hear from the losers.
So what are we talking about when we talk about "redesign." It's not about putting some government form on the Internet that now has to be filed in paper form. It will involve providers being compensated for results, not reimbursed for inputs. It will involve services being delivered by local non-profits and for-profits that are now delivered by government employees. It will involve introducing competition in areas where now only monopolies exist.
Change will be disruptive, but we need new thinking, not merely tinkering around the edges.
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