Making government work

By Ed Runyan

NILES — Consultant David Osborne, an author and adviser to former Vice President Al Gore, brought his decades-long goal of reforming government to local officials Friday.

Osborne re-explained the concept of making government more consumer friendly to an audience at Ciminero’s Banquet Center that has heard such admonitions over and over again in recent years.

Osborne advised that the culture of government and education has worked in the United States through much of the 20th century, when the phrase “good enough for government work” didn’t seem out of place.

But with government revenues dwindling as a result of reduced wages in private industry and the growing cost of health care, Social Security and pensions, America can’t afford the bureaucratic form of government it has, Osborne said.

The culture of government involves standardized services, layers and lots of rules and regulations.

Government is what Osborne called a public monopoly, meaning it has no incentive to change.

It frequently takes tough times — a type of motivation — for government to change, he said.

The U.S. Postal Service is a good example of why the old style of government doesn’t work anymore.

When Osborne was a kid, everybody admired the U.S. Postal Service, but not now, he said.

“Why don’t we admire the Postal Service? Federal Express,” he said. Along came a company that could do more than the government, so our attitude toward the Postal Service changed, he said.

Innovations in society have been driven by private enterprise because it motivates workers in ways government doesn’t.

Government could motivate workers by giving them purpose, giving them incentives, requiring them to be accountable and giving them the power to do better.

One of the most destructive forces in government is the budgeting process, because so much effort goes into “padding” budget requests so that an agency can get the amount it feels it really needs.

Instead, such an organization needs to focus on outcomes, such as how to create better health, how to improve an economy, how to improve the environment.

With such goal-setting being of primary importance, nonessential items drop off at the bottom.

“All of the energy is focused on results, not on last year’s costs,” he said. “If they produce results, they stay. If not, they’re below the line.”

Jason Loree, Boardman Township administrator, said he is a big fan of Osborne’s books.

He has tried to implement Osborne’s ideas in Boardman, but it takes time to reach consensus among officials on goals.

Loree said the Ohio Legislature could take a number of steps to make local government more efficient, especially where the State Employment Relations Board and collective bargaining are involved.

Among the biggest obstacles to adapting to changing times, Loree noted, are concepts such as “past practice” that are important in collective-bargaining agreements.

It is also difficult to change with the times when governments have relatively few options for ways to generate revenue, such as property taxes for townships, sales taxes for counties and income taxes for cities.

runyan@vindy.com