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Feb
27
Honest to goodness I cannot make this up.
Here’s today’s Plain Dealer editorial about Ohio Governor Ted Strickland’s budget plans to reduce duplication and inefficiencies in how the state government is organized:
One aim of Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed $54.3 billion budget is to widen his power, …
Really!? How!?
One instance cited by the AP: “A host of state boards and commissions [would be] consolidated under the Department of Administrative Services.” Administrative Services is Ohio’s housekeeping agency, led by a Strickland appointee.
Sheesh, I thought – that sounds awfully familiar. Oh yeah! Maybe because former Ohio Attorney General and Republican primary candidate for governor in 2006, Jim Petro, wanted to do the same thing:
In a major policy address Thursday, (gubernatorial candidate) Jim Petro unveiled a two-year plan to radically change the way state government operates. It calls for consolidating Ohio’s 23 Cabinet agencies into nine and ending duplication among the state’s 270 regulatory boards. Through attrition and time, he contends the changes would reduce the state workforce by 20 percent and save up to $1 billion annually.
Legislative leaders — all Republican — are stressing the need for caution and careful study but welcoming any suggestions on how to help address next year’s budget, expected to be the most difficult in decades. Other governors and candidates for governor have suggested similar proposals, although none quite so comprehensive, and have met with mixed success.
Of course, who does Ohio have to thank for the desire and need to consolidate the government?
Gov. Bob Taft campaigned on a plan to make “government smaller.” Once elected, we learned he would shrink it by one Cabinet director — a feat achieved when he merged the Bureau of Employment Services with the Department of Human Services. The resulting bureaucratic monster has been a financial and managerial disaster so severe that even agency Director Tom Hayes, known as Mr. Fix It, has been unable to repair this one.
What a difference four years – oh, and a governor from a different political party – makes.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:32 am February 27th, 2009 in Democrats, Government, leadership, Media, Ohio, Politics, Republicans, Ted Strickland
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4 Responses to “PD: Strickland’s efforts: power trip; when it was Petro’s idea, it was comprehensive consolidation”
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The plan to consolidate some activities of boards and commissions only has to do with back office things like paying the bills, processing travel vouchers, etc. This is not a power grab, as the public facing missions of the boards and commissions would remain in their hands. Each board and commission doesn’t need its own, duplicative, business office.
The merger of the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services (a job placement agency) with the old Ohio Welfare Department (foods stamps, welfare payments) was a bad marriage from the start. Even a talented administrator like Tom Hayes found it very challenging to manage agencies with two different missions and cultures.
While it may sound good to do all this consolidating, it does not always work nor does it necessarily save money. What you end up with is humongeous and unmanageable agencies.
Governor Taft tried to place the many boards in state government into one state agency but was blocked by the heavy lobbying of the state board members and administrators. Governor Strickland will run into a similar road block.
Pelikan – I’m with you.
Here’s what angers and irritates me the most: the “power grab” perception is being slapped onto the details by the mainstream media – that news and info outlet that is supposed to be better than blogs and online news and information because of its editorial filters that we lack (which is a sham argument anyway since we all filter anyway – it’s an issue of who do you trust – the paid editors at a for-profit entity or the one blog author who puts his or he name on what they say).
And here they are using extremely pejorative language in both instances of describing similar actions but by politicians in different parties, and in an editorial column, the one place where the papers can offer up their opinion and we know they’re speaking for their paper with an opinion.
It’s just icky.
MA – I appreciate you reading and leaving a comment.
What, in your opinion, should be done in order to get something done, on this front?