AP Piece Shows Just How Bad State Budget Situation Really Is
On Monday, Melinda Deslatte’s Associated Press article on the size of Louisiana’s state payroll pointed out why the question of “what should we cut?” in an effort to close the $1.6 billion hole in the state’s budget isn’t the right one.
“What should we keep?” is the better question.
Deslatte notes that the state agencies can’t even agree on how many employees they have, much less which or how many of them will have to be laid off in an effort to downsize state government.
Meanwhile, the governor’s Division of Administration and the Department of Civil Service don’t even agree on their numbers for full-time employees, or what are called “full-time equivalents” in the data.
The division says the state has nearly 83,000 full-time employees, while the civil service department says the state has nearly 87,000. They do their counts with different workers included — and neither one includes legislative agencies, which have nearly 600 workers.
And the mentality within the Jindal administration, headed by a relatively-popular governor who’d like to be known as a conservative, seems to be that preserving an outsized state governmental apparatus despite study after study showing that apparatus does not deliver value for the taxpayer compared to other states. Division of Administration spokesman Michael DiResto outlines the strategy of attempting to preserve the current system despite the overwhelming evidence that Louisiana can’t afford a government of this size and scope:
“You’re trying to avoid as many layoffs as possible, and you’re trying to make sure the departments can still function,” said Michael DiResto, a spokesman for the governor’s budget office, the Division of Administration.
The fact is, some of the state’s departments shouldn’t be functioning. Many of them are redundant, some should be handled by local governments and some could be eliminated altogether. But no one in Louisiana’s government seems to be willing to stake political capital on specific plans to reorganize, trim down or do away with needless bureaucracies.
State treasurer John Kennedy seems to understand the situation better than most at the Capitol, and Kennedy has proposed eliminating 15,000 state jobs through attrition over the past three years. But Kennedy is selling his plan based on not having to fire anyone. And while that’s a laudable goal, Louisiana has too much government. $1.6 billion too much, as it happens. And Kennedy rightly recognizes that “Labor is the biggest expense. You can’t get control of the problem without addressing labor.”
Further, you can’t just trim around the edges when you have a structural budgetary problem, because when the economy recovers and revenues go up the politicians will just grow those edges again, setting up another crisis of $1.6 billion or more in the future. Instead, you have to redefine the scope of what the government does so that it’s not possible to have a $1.6 billion deficit.
And that involves looking at government from the opposite end. It involves identifying what the core functions of government are and keeping those at the highest cost-effectiveness possible. And it involves pulling the plug on everything else.
This isn’t being done. And it’s a shame, because should someone in the state’s political class engage a real discussion about the size and scope of a government which has never delivered on its expensive promises to the people of this state, that someone would likely find a huge amount of support in an election year.
After all, it’s not hard to get attention as a serious agent of change when the people currently running the state can’t even accurately count the number of state employees our tax dollars are paying for.
You mean we don’t need 6 guys to fill a pothole:
1 to man the shovel and 5 to lean on their shovels and watch.
We could cut 10,000 positions and not miss a beat
What should make people wonder if why Piyush wants to cut the lowly worker and not the high priced buddies he has in the Gov’s office?? Wonder why the salaries in his office has gone up 20%+ since he was elected? Dont hear about any of them taking a cut or getting laid off!!!! Maybe its time a few of them were..
Attrition to some degree can address the problem, but that as the only strategy suffers from the same problem as does the major plank in Kennedy’s idea of not filling vacancies, it is not targeted and too indiscriminate, lacking any appreciation of priorities in determining what government should do, as you suggest.
Better would be a renewed focus on changing civil service rules on perfomance assessment. This would push lower performers out of state government and encourage others to retire, creating more latitude for the targeted reductions to amke them better match priorities, increase overall efficiency, and save the state money. It can be done in time for 2011-12, but it has to start happening soon. See http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2010/12/layoff-setback-reminds-jindal-to-push.html.
It would seem inevitable that some state agencies should be closed yet somehow a year or two goes by and nothing has changed. Will the end of the line come abruptly as the state runs out of cash or will we at least try to come up with a plan that allows for some kind of orderly transition? I would think its also inevitable that we get used to the idea of paying more taxes; we can’t keep laying it off onto business or there won’t be any business left. I don’t really mind paying more in taxes as long as I know that ALL the worthless, wasted programs and “services” will be shut off. In short, no more waste.
If you truly got rid of all the waste, fraud and abuse in state (or federal, or for that matter local) government, not only would there be no need to pay higher taxes but the surpluses would be so large that current tax rates would be cut significantly.
Once again state employees seem to be the scape goat. It all sounds so good, until Louisianians stop taking federal money to fund the regulations and programs that come with that federal money. It would seem that these arrogant politicians want the rest of the college educated people to leave this state. Do we really want the recent trend of out-migration of college educated, taxpaying, working people, and businesses to continue? It sounds so good when the politicians spew this spin. This state rewards people who do not work. Hand outs abound with free housing, school lunches, subsidies, and health care for the “underprivileged” (especially “the poor little children”). Meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of people who do not work or pay taxes, but take government subsidies. Our budget shot up from 17 billion under Foster, to immediately 18 billion under Blanco, to now 27 billion under Jindal. We have colleges within 5 miles of each other- e.g. Grambling and Tech. We have spent millions on new “community colleges” which we do not need- (e.g. Delta Community College within 5 miles of ULM). We, the taxpayers, pay for TOPS (i.e. other peoples children to go to college- which is really the parent’s responsibilities / their choice). We have spent millions on libraries- who needs a library building in every community in today’s electronic age? Every little village, town, municipality, AND parish has to have it’s own special municipal buildings, jails, or shelters. Give me a break, Stop spending. Stop passing “feel good” vote buying regulations. How much can we the working tax payers continue to pay? There is duplication in state agencies- stop the duplication. Reduce the state employee rolls sensibly through attrition, without disrupting services.
The unfunded liability for state employee’s retirement system (LASERS) runs about 18% per year. If anyone really wants to cut costs, all they have to eliminate the defined benefit plan to NEW employees (and politicians).
It won’t have an immediate impact, but over time would represent a huge savings to taxpayers.
The facts are that WORKING state employees do not receive social security. When the ENRON scandal became front line news, the journalist also took a look at the state’s retirement systems. The fact is that the LASERS retirement fund has been robbed for years. The monies were taken (“stolen”) and put into the general fund and left the system unfunded, This occurred whenever state politicians needed a fix. State employees have worked and PAID into this system to receive their retirement. Defined benefit retirements are preferable, considering the historical trend in social security or a 401 K (which relies on the unstable stock market). The governor and the legislature should stop the ponzi scheme and restore the LASER funding. The guilty legislators should be arrested for fraud.
[...] bureaucrats’ narrow preferences for keeping the bureaucracy intact. Don’t forget the quote from Rainwater’s spokesman Michael DiResto in which he stated that avoiding layoffs was a top priority. “You’re trying to avoid as many [...]