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

CHAPTER
FOUR
20.13
Decentralize personnel
authority with
accountability.
20.14
Reduce management
layers.
20.15
Restore respect to
public service work.
20.16
Reform total marketsensitive
compensation
to reward results and
skills.
20.17
Maintain core
competencies;
otherwise invite
competition.
20.18
All employees should
contribute.
20.19
Institute a state
government management
model and
common language.
20.20
Re-examine delivery of
certain state government
services.
20.21
Contract out collective
bargaining.
Patricia A. Patros-
Hanson, Eau Claire
“The policy of an agency
having to spend all
funding allocated is
idiotic.”
workers and type of work needed. So
job titles, working conditions and work
itself will be for the people involved to
decide, not a distant “specialist”. This
means personnel authority, with accountability,
will be decentralized to the
lowest possible level.
2. Have fewer management layers.
Because employees will be treated more
professionally, fewer supervisors will be
needed. Those middle mangers who
remain will have the job of helping
employees achieve, together, the mission
of the organization based on
performance standards and agreed upon
results. Managers will be leaders, not
controllers.
3. Pay for skill and performance. If
government employees are supposed to
work smarter they need to be paid
accordingly. Because the budget process
will emphasize results, the workers will
be paid for performance, individually or
as members of a team. Poor performance,
when it occurs, will similarly be
addressed. Compensation will be
competitive, taking into account total
pay and benefits.
4. Restore respect to public service.
State employees believe they are not
properly understood and their work is
not appreciated. As the management
system produces government
scorecards, the value of public employees
will become better known. In
addition, a visible effort involving the
state, unions and private enterprise
should be considered.
R E S U L T S
Delivering a new management
system will:
1 Emphasize measurable results over
meaningless process.
2 Give the taxpayer more value for
today’s dollar and today’s service.
3 Eliminate $2 billion in waste in the
existing civil service and
management system from
duplicative checking and distrust.
4 Bring in the best management
principles from the private sector,
beginning with exhaustive pilot
projects, chartered to produce
measurable results in return for
freedom from many rules,
regulations and burdens that
restrict other agencies.
PROCUREMENT THAT DELIVERS
VALUE
Most state employees complain about
purchasing practices that force them to use
costly and time consuming paperwork and
deny them the flexibility to buy what they need
to do their work, even if it costs less.
Procurement reforms will modernize the
entire system, delegating to the lowest possible
level the responsibility and authority to buy
what’s needed to do the job, as long as the employee
stays within budget. A new system of
legislative and executive oversight will need to
be designed, but it should not be designed on
the model of the current system, which micromanages.
At the same time, employees should be
equipped to become smart buyers. This is the
new service role—as opposed to the existing
controlling role—that will be played by procurement
specialists in state government. In
addition, the employees will become “buyers”
of procurement services, requiring the procurement
functions, for the most part, to compete
for business within the state government system.
Other key areas of reform include major
changes in the way technology is purchased (the
existing system makes it difficult to buy for
value), increased use of partnerships and the
use of “sunshine”—or open government reporting—as
a tool insiders can use to do comparison
shopping and outsiders can use to monitor
costs.
5 Reward employees for saving
money.
6 Change civil service by getting rid of
management layers, focusing on the
mission of an agency and paying
workers for skills and performance.
7 Restore respect to public service.
54 CITIZEN • COMMUNITY • GOVERNMENT — WISCONSIN: THE 21 ST CENTURY