SAVE Commission's findings - La Follette School of Public Affairs ...

CHAPTER
FOUR
GOAL #20
The New
System
Deliver value and
value employees
John J. Bartelme
Commission for the
Study of Administrative
Value and Efficiency
Commissioner
isconsin government in the 21st
Century must be radically different
than today’s government. There is
no choice. Taxpayers want it. Public
employees want it. The times
require it. These recommendations
boldly move all Wisconsin policy
making and taxing bodies—state, local and
educational—into the 21st Century. How far
and fast they get where they need to go is up to
the citizens. This report begins the journey.
The new system emphasizes measurable
results over meaningless process. It will give
the taxpayer and customer value for today’s
dollar and constantly work to give better value
for tomorrow’s dollar. It will see the citizen as a
competent partner and the public employee as
a qualified helper. The new system will place a
high value on the capacity of everyone to work
smarter. It also will place high value on the potential
to use knowledge to plan better.
THE SYSTEM WE HAVE
Today’s bureaucratic system came from an
era when there was a need to professionalize
government work and insulate government
workers. Over the years, a system evolved that
insulated the government workers from the reality,
as well as the pressure, of the outside and
trapped them in a process so rigid that they
seldom could realize their full potential.
A Commission advisor who is experienced
in developing efficient and effective organizations
estimated the annual cost of Wisconsin’s
existing civil service and management system
at $2.37 billion. That is all waste, he said, because
the system involves checkers checking
the checkers. Wisconsin has approximately a
30 percent penalty on every dollar it spends
due to this oversight. The 30 cents pays for the
paperwork that taxpayers don’t need and government
workers don’t want.
The paperwork and regulations are an attempt
to keep state employees honest, the system
fair and quality high throughout—a good
objective. The irony, according to the
Commission’s advisor, is that Wisconsin is, by
culture and tradition, a state with high quality
workers and work products and exceedingly
high ethics and honesty. So the state does a very
effective (and costly) job of regulating its own
behavior that, for the most part, is unnecessary.
THE SYSTEM WE WANT
The new system will adopt the best management
principles from the private sector with
an eye on the next century. Based on an intensive
management reform workshop involving
the public and private sectors, expert help from
nationally recognized management experts and
the insights of thousands of state employees,
an entirely new management system is recommended.
Some of the reforms will be achieved
through prompt executive or legislative action.
Others will take more time to review, analyze,
test and debate.
AN IMPORTANT PILOT PROJECT
Large organizations do not change quickly.
It will take time to transform state government
and even longer to create a true partnership
system among all levels of government that need
to work together.
As a beginning, there will be several pilot
projects involving state agencies and agency
units. The pilots will be launched to demonstrate
not only the waste in the current system
but the benefits of an entirely new system in
which employees can focus on results and realize
their potential. In all cases, the workers—
52 CITIZEN • COMMUNITY • GOVERNMENT — WISCONSIN: THE 21 ST CENTURY