The Legislative Press & Information Bureau
Op-Ed
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RI should try zero-based budgeting
By Sen. Edward J. O'Neill
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Last year, I wrote a Commentary piece
(“R.I. business, taxpayers must fight like unions,” Jan.
24, 2010) that discussed the lack of effectiveness of business to mount
an effective campaign to change the makeup of the Rhode Island General
Assembly.
During the 2010 election, good-government groups led by the Rhode
Island Statewide Coalition, through its Business Network, tried to
rally business and provide financial support for business-friendly
candidates to change the mix in the legislature. Intentions were good
and a strong effort was made, but it was a failure. Organized labor,
meanwhile, stuck to its playbook and took out disobedient Democrats via
primaries. They also helped elect Governor Chafee, with 36 percent of
the vote. So here we are.
Now we have a proposed budget that would take a sick cow and poison it.
Small business, the backbone of our state economy, would suffer the
most. Taxing our way out of a deficit would also hurt the people who
can afford it the least — the poor. The Chafee administration is
now proposing taxing homeless veterans out of what little they have,
and taxing heating oil and haircuts.
What are we doing? Where are the budget cuts?
I am often told that government is not like business. That the laws of
physics do not apply. That we can’t do it because we have always
done it this way. I guess, by that logic, that we could not send men to
the moon. After all, it had never been done before.
Why wouldn’t zero-based budgeting work? Maybe because it has not
been tried? How about each department head reducing his or her budget
by 15 percent, ranking the functions and services by the most critical
at the base and building the budgets with the least critical items at
the top?
Instead, the common trick is to lop off the things that will cause the
largest outcry to deflect the focus from what should be cut.
In the business world, when a manager is told to reduce his budget, he
or she does, or a replacement does. When is the last time a department
head in Rhode Island was sent packing for overspending, or failing to
make required budget cuts?
Has all state hiring been stopped? Are all state purchases on hold?
What is being done to reduce state costs? Where is the “team
effort” to reduce expenses?
In a prior life in high tech, I was involved with “team
improvement programs.” These teams were made up of people doing
the work with an in-house facilitator, not an outside hire. We saved
millions of dollars by listening to fellow employees and improving the
tools our people worked with. People like to work smarter, not harder.
Have Rhode Island managers tapped the giant reservoir of ideas
available from the state workers doing the jobs? Are they listening to
them?
George Nee, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, has said publicly
that we should give our state workers a chance to improve productivity.
They know best how to get the job done. I agree with Mr. Nee on this
point.
Operational excellence is a natural outcome of people working as a
team. Everyone needs an oar in the water to get our costs down. A new
day has dawned, and Rhode Islanders are beginning to realize that we
need to work together to get our state operations lean. That means
better thinking, better systems, better tools, and better leadership.
Our new administration has failed in recruiting new thinkers and change
agents while pushing away some of our best and brightest. Col. Brendan
Doherty is gone as superintendent of state police, and Education
Commissioner Deborah Gist may be on her way out, given the composition
of the new Board of Regents of Elementary and Secondary Education.
We need to burn the proposed budget and start over.
Let’s get some intellectual horsepower to help. I’ll bet
that, if we locked our department heads in a room with a few of our
business leaders and the state treasurer, they could hammer out a
better budget in two weeks than one we have now.
What do we have to lose?
(Edward J. O'Neill is the Independent Senator from District 17, Lincoln, North Providence, Pawtucket)
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