McGuinness Plans for More Efficient State Government

By Patrick McGuinness Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas When it comes to the challenge of closing the gap between state spending & revenue there are no easy answers but there are a few correct ones.  First we need to say no to spending we cannot afford.     We should start from a zero-baseline budget set priorities within that funding must-have" priorities first.   We need to look at areas where government spending might not be needed and eliminate those and cut programs that dont work. However faced with a growing disparity between wants and resources we have the necessary challenge of doing more with less working to make provision of services more efficient. This goal is within reach and we can create a more efficient government.  Private sector competition has forced many companies to adapt using technology and leaner management to do more with less for some time. Applying those lessons and techniques to the public sector could transform our state government to be more efficient and effective.  More than $24 billion is spent annually on the salaries for the half a million people in the Texas public sector workforce. Improving their productivity and making sure they are working in programs and agencies that work will be a huge benefit to Texas. There are four key principle vectors for transforming government to do more with less: technology; market-driven systems; metrics-driven accountability; and lean management.

1. Leverage Technology: Putting everything the Government does online improves efficiency and transparency and makes interaction with Government easier. State Government efforts to consolidate IT for state agencies are ongoing and effort should be reviewed to ensure the implementation is effective. Leveraging technology can help make education more efficient enable low-cost alternatives to incarceration and make regulatory oversight cheaper yet more effective.
2. Market-Based & Market-Driven Systems: Public price information competition choice and incentives/rewards for quality and performance all these elements can improve state operations but are often foreign to how government agencies work. In areas such as health care where public posting of medical prices could help consumers understand the choices they are making it can make a big difference.  We should consider merit pay for teachers and other incentives for state employees for performance and find ways to introduce choice and competition in provision of Government services.
3. Metrics-Driven Accountability: Accountability is enabled by metrics and transparency. All local Governments school boards public universities etc. should post all budget information.  We should establish metrics for performance of agencies. Child test scores are being used to rate school effectiveness for other state agencies their effectiveness to their intended purpose needs measurement. Financial metrics and results metrics can be used to drive agency improvements and when made transparent to the public can help improve overall accountability of Government to the people.
4.  Apply Lean Management Systems: Systems that work in private-sector - TQM lean reengineering etc. have been transformative to improving results in the private sector. Technology is a poor investment if management and organization doesnt re-organize to take advantage of it. Attack quality and performance gaps compare against benchmark organizations and apply management systems that work to leverage technology.

We need to reform based on what works not hopes and preconceived notions.   Applying private-sector principles to state government will help with accountability and efficiency. The legislature has a transformation role via sunset reviews and oversight. Using that role legislators can ask the tough questions and use real data to fix what is broken and improve so we can indeed do more with less. Every agency and program should be reviewed according to the above five criteria during the sunset process using that for a thoroughgoing review of all processes in the agency. We can use the transformation points to improve every agency. Doing all of the above agency by agency we could realize a huge improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of our public sector. This will be a challenge for public-sector administrators but wasteful spending and mediocrity is not an option. I am committed to making the state of Texas work better for the taxpayers and the citizens and I will apply these and other ideas to help improve Texas government for the people.