Government’s code

Our local governments are doing poorly. Their fiscal health has
almost never been so bad and their internal stress and distractions
are only making matters worse.
These city, school and county agencies are submerged in a fiscal
crisis without end. They are struggling with historic budget
troubles in a depressed economy of shrinking revenues. They face
unyielding expenses and unaffordable expectations.
Dated bureaucracies, insulated decision-making and self-interest
labor unions are thwarting any suggestions for innovation, change
of values, attitudes or priorities.
Local government leaders are left with only “stop gap” budget
cutting, borrowing and other short-term fixes. They start over each
year with the same budget document, making “across the board” cuts
to programs, services and jobs. The budget gets “balanced” but the
future gets short-changed. A deeper “structural fiscal crisis” is
sometimes mentioned, but a survival plan is never put forward.
These governments — our public services and institutions — do
not have a temporary budget problem; they have a genetic problem.
They belong on the threatened and endangered species list.
Since no single government or agency has found the political
nerve or the entrepreneurial desire to dig deeper (or wider) into
this “structural fiscal crisis” we urge all these governments to
join together in a shared Government Innovation Task Force.
Born in the Iron Age, these organizations have failed to evolve
and keep pace with global changes and whole new sets of social
problems, plagues and paradigms.
To survive and succeed they must transform from centralized
bureaucracies into “open source” organizations where power,
decisions and expectations are shared in new forums and working
groups. Think Google, not IBM.
Labor unions should not be allowed to hold the bottom line of
these budgets as hostages. Internal department heads and mid-level
managers need to be challenged with new accountability standards
and performance measurements. Elected officials should stop looking
for labor concessions, voluntary furloughs, one-time funding tricks
or deferred maintenance. They should grasp new thinking about
customer service, delivered results and future investments.
Sonoma County’s supervisors recently adopted a $1.18 billion
budget, filling most of a $61 million deficit by cutting 237 jobs.
While taking this drastic action, county leaders said the fiscal
crisis could get worse next year and not better. But they did
nothing to counter their own predicted fate.
There are 18 different labor unions representing 2,500 county
government workers. Small cities like Healdsburg, Sebastopol and
Windsor also must negotiate with multiple fire, police, utility and
mid-manager unions. Labor talks at local school districts are
equally challenging — and just as short-sighted.
Once, sometime just after the zenith of the Iron Age, public
employees and civil servants deserved extra job security, better
pensions and richer benefits than their counterparts in the more
lucrative private sector.
Not anymore. That all changed with the collapse of 2008 when
private investments, property values and whole industries lost up
to 30 percent of their money and earning capacity.
Since the collapse, banks, builders, car manufacturers, large
retail, newspapers and many other industries have been forced to
downsize, adapt, innovate or expire. Now it is government’s turn.
With less private jobs, lower property values and a very jittery
economy, we can no longer afford the governments we once had.
Arguing about labor concessions or furloughs will not get us the
new forms of government we need and can afford. The old
bureaucracies must be opened or eliminated. A multi-government
effort could attack the common issues of labor costs, out-of-date
mandates and lack of strategic thinking. Big problems like costly
health insurance, investments in new technologies and more
private-public partnerships could be researched. We might find new
jobs for our governments, not fewer.
Or, we can wait until next year and make more “across the board”
budget cuts, job furloughs and dinosaur-like choices.
— Rollie Atkinson