By Louis Porter – VERMONT PRESS BUREAU
MONTPELIER — In an unusual occurrence for the first day of a lawmaking session, legislative and administration leaders on Tuesday unveiled a plan to reorganize state government and save a badly needed $38 million.
Statehouse optimists saw the announcement, the details of which will be worked out over the next several weeks and months, as a unique display of bipartisan cooperation on the most difficult and pressing issue facing the state: a more than $150 million hole in the next state budget.
Pessimists, meanwhile, wondered what will make this government reorganization effort, which borrowed from many studies, reports and initiatives of the past, different from the other attempts to streamline government and make it more efficient.
But one thing was different about the proposal endorsed by Gov. James Douglas, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin and House Speaker Shap Smith. This time the projected savings from efforts like reducing school administrative overhead and reconsidering whether some nonviolent offenders should be in prison will be booked into the state’s spending plan up front.
Commissioner of Finance and Management James Reardon said the biggest danger is not that the $38 million in savings in the more than $1 billion in annual state spending will not materialize, but that state government will not make such attempts to deal with the fiscal problems facing it.
If the proposal results in $30 million in savings rather than $38 million “obviously I would be disappointed, but I would be extremely happy we achieved the $30 million,” Reardon said. As for the resulting hole in the budget, “I will deal with that when I get there if I need to,” he added.
The goal of the exercise is “better outcomes” for those using state services with less money spent, Douglas said. The state, facing a large gap between revenue and projected expenses, must “restructure, reposition and make sure we live within our means,” Douglas added.
Dubie said the proposal holds the possibility of improving what state workers can do for Vermonters.
“This is about empowering people who really want to serve the public,” he said. “This is about people who depend on state services.”
“We are going to bring the state into the 21st century,” Shumlin said. “We are going to work together in a bipartisan manner. Do not doubt our resolve, we will get this done.”
Smith told his fellow Democrats in the House that, at first, he was skeptical about the proposal and wanted more details. But the broadness of the framework and the fact that lawmakers and others will flesh out the proposals mean more flexibility and ultimately offer more promise, he said.
And critics of the proposals should be ready to bring along with their critiques alternative ways of saving the money, Smith added.
The proposals outlined by a consulting firm, administration officials and lawmakers are far from complete. That work will be done by the executive and legislative branches of government over the coming weeks.
But the “challenges” outlined by the report released Tuesday will provide the road map and, if put into action, will make changes across state government.
Those changes would include altering how the state’s human service departments are run to present a unified and simplified face to those Vermonters who use them. A family could gain access to a variety of services and programs through one portal.
Families would gain more flexibility — and some more money — if they took care of their own infirm or elderly members when possible rather than relying on only state programs.
Human service agencies, including mental health agencies and the Department of Corrections, would reconfigure their goals to concentrate more on the results seen by those using the programs rather than what services they received.
There would be more consolidation of purchasing and “back office” functions of public schools, even without consolidation of districts.
State aid for the most expensive cases among special education students would be reduced while graduation rates for those students would be improved through more state management and oversight.
In addition, across state government the proposals would give more flexibility in operating rules — particularly to programs or agencies that applied to be “charter units” of the process — and invest money in changes that were judged to hold savings in the long run.
Experts from the Minnesota consulting firm Public Strategies Group worked with lawmakers and administrative officials to draft the proposals, which the firm’s leaders acknowledged were not yet complete in their details.
One idea is that the state should hire outside contractors through performance-based rather than fee-for-service contracts. That would mean paying companies for the services they provide when their promises measured up, rather than for hours worked or services rendered.
PSG’s roughly $100,000 contract was a service contract, however, one that Chairman Babak Armajani called a “primitive” kind of contract. However, the state’s purchasing system is not yet set up to enter a performance contract, the kind of agreement the firm would prefer if it continues to work with Vermont, he said.
In the end, agreeing to and implementing the $38 million in government reorganization efforts will be the easy part, Douglas said. Even if the proposals work exactly as hoped, state budget writers both in the Pavilion Office Building and in the Statehouse will have to figure out a way to close the remaining $112 million gap in the state budget.
Douglas, Smith and Shumlin all said Tuesday they will not support a budget that is not balanced, even though Vermont is unique among states in not requiring a spending plan in which expenses match revenues.
“It is in Vermont’s best interests to balance this budget,” Shumlin said. “We have to shed the sweat and tears to get that done.”
This article appeared in the Rutland Herald
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