Note to the new governor: Looking for a place to change status quo? Check out payroll

During the first gubernatorial debate, which was held in Youngstown on Sept. 5, Democratic candidate Ted Strickland said his opponent, Republican Ken Blackwell, represented the status quo.
Wednesday, in his first State of the State address, Gov. Ted Strickland said Ohioans are ready to reject the status quo and to "embrace transformational change." Those words appeared on the first page of the governor's prepared speech. The next 12 pages contained some promise of transformation, some obvious appeals to the political base that swept Strickland and other Democrats into office in November and a whole lot of what will come to be only if Strickland has nearly magical political powers.
A second look
We applaud the governor's effort to hold charter schools to account in ways that no Republican administration or legislature has been willing to do. Charter or community schools were initially presented as an experimental alternative to public schools, and were then expanded year after year with no evidence that the experiment was working -- and some that it was failing.
In the meantime, charter schools grew at a topsy-turvy rate by appealing to various parental constituencies without being held to the same standards as public schools. These "experiments" -- including the near-scandalous online schools -- lured thousands of students and the state funds that were attached to them from public school districts. Some districts -- Youngstown among them -- were unable to pursue long-range planning because the student body was constantly changing.
But while Strickland, through the State Department of Education, can enforce standards on the charter schools and put the brakes on new charters, he is going to find it much more difficult, even with the line-item veto, to stop state money from going to for-profit charter operators. For one thing, most schools are operated by nonprofit entities that purchase services from for-profit management companies.
Add to that the potential for a grass-roots revolt by parents who are happy having their children in charter schools -- even underperforming schools -- and the task ahead of the new governor becomes even more formidable.
But education reform is only a part of what Strickland talked about Wednesday, and the role that charter schools and vouchers play in education was only a small part of his education package.
Rejiggering the biennial budget to hold it to an increase of about 2 percent a year while not cutting into essential services would present enormous challenges to any governor, even if his party controlled the Legislature. Strickland must do so while while improving education, filling gaps produced by tax reform that was passed by the last General Assembly and will be implemented in coming years, and pursuing economic development.
We would add a revolutionary element to the governor's agenda, something that might get support from the Republican legislators, but would not sit well with some of Strickland's constituency.
He made reference to "transformational changes" and to creating "a better system for knowing what we're getting for our money."
Something new
We would suggest that the new governor take a closer look at what has happened to the public payroll during more than two decades of caving in to the demands of union negotiators or being whip-sawed by arbitrators who never saw a raise that deserved to be denied.
As we noted in a Feb. 25 editorial, while private employment pay in the Mahoning Valley increased 59 percent over a 20-year period ending in 2004, government employee pay grew at more than twice as fast, by 124 percent. Using those figures, a private industry job that paid 20,000 in 1984 increased to 32,800 in 2004. Meanwhile, a 20,000 government job increased to 44,800 over the same period.
We suspect that state employees have fared no worse in comparison to private employees in much of the state. That kind of growth eventually adds crippling costs to government and contributes to an atmosphere of resentment among taxpayers.
In a meeting with editors after his address Wednesday, Strickland acknowledged that he was "shocked" by the pay being received by appointees to various state boards. Those examples, while shocking indeed, are a relatively small employee niche. Strickland sidestepped the larger question of the effects of years of payroll and benefit inflation on the cost of the state doing business.
If he wants to make a politically painful but fiscally effective break with the status quo, we would suggest that Ohio's payroll is a good place for the new governor to start.