Quick Ideas on State Government

Quick Ideas on State Government
Usually the liberal answer to government is just throw more money at it, the conservative answer is just cut the program just not the one in my district, etc. Republicans in this state are fairly lucky, they can vote and complain about waste without anyone in their districts actually losing a dime of services.

A primary theme of this blog is that people love government services, sure they'll complain about government but they love what it brings, so much that sometimes I think they just take it for granted, road plowing is a great example, how quickly it gets done and how ready people are to race right out and get back to business even after three feet of snow that would have paralyzed the city for days if not weeks in the past have fallen. But the second part of that is that people hate to pay for these services, I know people on MassHealth who complain about their income taxes, people with three kids in public schools who complain about their property taxes. The fact is that most people just assume they are getting screwed.

The Commonwealth as many states is in a bad place economically. We have grown accustomed to growing budgets that would absorb the increased costs of health care, energy, general inflation and salary expenses. This is not just Massachusetts of course, there has been a decent safety net funded by federal largess but this too is unsustainable. There are very simple things that would save a lot of money, the so-called fat in government, the procurement issues, the redundancy, the constant covering of your ass and lack of supporting innovative programming and staff that prevents government improvement and cost saving but those are more leadership and governance issues .

So here is my initial framework for some of the Commonwealth's issues, as usual, mostly unresearched, some somewhat far fetched, may some that would require legislation and a few that may be plain illegal, just some ideas. Hell, some of these ideas probably hurt me in the pocketbook.

1. The GIC-all municipalities receiving state aid (OK, so all) whose health care costs exceed that of the GIC per person are required to participate in GIC, certainly this is very controversial to some local unions who have been blessed with very low premiums and co-pays or have more gold plated health plan. These changes will go against the long ingrained ideas of local control, likely something that is coming to pass as we get involved in much more high professionalized workforces in police, fire, DPW and other important city functions. (including schools obviously)

2. Regionalization
Some schools have already done this, and below I would encourage further regionalization of school functions, this is often treated as some sort of "Death Panel" argument of education, like all local elementary schools are going to be closed and they are going to ship my kid from Swampscott to New Bedford. But there are other functions such as fire and police dispatch, and specialized functions of government that are usually too expensive for one district that isn't Cambridge or Boston to fulfill. For example, I'm unsure if a single part-time veteran's agent (required under state law) serves our veterans better that an experienced regional, multi-town agent who isn't a local VFW denizen could provide. My feeling is that regionalization would help to move away from the local, often parochial hiring of "life long residents" who may not be as qualified for the job to a further professionalization of the workforce.

3. Casinos
I'm going here. They likely aren't as good as some people will say they are revenuewise and certainly not as evil as those that are against them are. I'm more pro-casino because of my libertarian streak, if you don't like them, don't go. I can do the math, I know "gaming" is stupid economically and morally it is a tax on the stupid, the old and the desperate. But lets face, folks are going to spend their money on something and even with Foxwoods, etc claiming economic issues, I still know dozens of folks who descend on these resorts to gamble. There are immediate licensing, construction and design dollars that would come out of these projects and some permanent jobs and tax income as well. I'd rather see some nice resorts than the inevitable panic of building big Quonset Huts filled with slots lined with buses filled with senior citizens during our upcoming continuing economic crisis. Certainly there are enough "Gateway Cities" that would welcome a little economic energy.

4.Education
I usually don't write about education because it is where I work, and I just don't want to represent my organization, since I don't set policy. However perhaps the biggest things I would advocate for are 1. Regionalization of particular school functions and governance 2. A statewide teacher contract for all of the Commonwealth's teachers 3. Full vertical articulation of our early childhood, K-12 and higher education system 4. Merit teacher pay for teams of teacher in underperforming schools.

5. Health
Education and health care are the two most expensive pieces of state government. I know very little about health care except that I have great health insurance (it cost me more out of pocket for lunch after my little girl was born than paying for the entire prenatal care and birth) and that I've been blessed with pretty good health all things considered. Massachusetts took the amazing but likely unsustainable step of universal health care. It was a good first step. The state will have to take step to work on tort reform, more options for lower and middle income people, likely built on higher co-pays and possible development of local non-profit co-ops run by health care professionals for health care professionals. The state will likely have to take steps to improve people's long term health through encouraging prevention and interventions for people with chronic disease, unsure that happens. The other big piece is to look at the health care system in a different way, nurses and nurse practitioners who are the heavy lifters in the system are more than qualified to do most than the most complicated medical procedures and come at a much cheaper price. More could be done to build the pathway to these positions that will serve our aging population as well as empower these professionals to do the work that they can do.

6. Business One-Stops
This may have happened already but these would be an extension of One-Stop Career centers that would focus on business development. These folks would work through permitting processes that often get held up locally, acting as ombudsmen or liaisons with local governments, working on permitting and licensing issues, etc. Working with local universities as economic incubators to build innovation, people don't come to Massachusetts for the waters. They come for the brainpower.

7. Collective Bargaining
I'm a union member. In fact it seems that a time may come where government employees are the last remaining major union the way things are going. This is probably some dangerous ground but I got to say that public employee unions and teacher unions are doing the best they can to mimic the United Autoworkers Union (also a former local UAW 2322 member here) in burying their workforce. I imagine that the image of public employee unions may be slightly better than Congress right now, seen as protecting our worst employees, standing in the way of real change, etc. There is something to be said for those accusations, there are many employees who judge themselves by seat time instead of performance, position rather than competence. (and many higher ups who feel the same way) But in fact there is a large majority of public employees who put public service first and are looking for the same economic security everyone else in the free world is looking for. I look for my own union leadership to negotiate in good faith with a strapped Commonwealth, unsure how this happens. Creation of career ladders for successful employees, more rapid and welcoming hiring and HR systems that support employees and a union that's more responsive to cleaning it's own house. OK, maybe this one is the biggest pipedream of them all.

8. Law Enforcement and Crime Prevention
First the Quinn Bill and the whole use of details are a joke and don't prevent crime or keep us safer. The cost of construction and utility projects grows higher and in fact police departments can pretty much require a higher level education or it's military training equivalent as a matter of pre-service for hiring. These are huge issues for the boys in blue, leading to huge salary cuts from the hundreds of cops in the Commonwealth earning over 100,000 a year. I realize that being a cop is hard job, but public employees have to realize that with the promise of relative job security and a pension and good benefits is the balance that you're not going to get rich doing it. Again regionalization of some law enforcement and the increase of specialized units and the state police would be helpful. To use a firefighting example, the fire chief of our city was asked when the last time they put out a fire without mutual aid was and he quite honestly declared, "I don't know, but I'm sure the fire engines were pulled by Clydesdale's". This mutual aid idea needs to be formalized more, not just for firefighting but for fighting gang violence and other specialized functions. The Crips and Bloods don't really care if they are gangbanging in Lynn, Revere or Chelsea, these issues quickly cross our quaint municipal borders. Certainly there are other complex issues of law enforcement and public safety that are analogous to this.

9. Zoo's and Pools and Rinks
I like state parks and likely they could be added to this list but maybe a primary function of the state should be recreational areas, but when it comes to zoos, pools, and rinks, I'm unsure if these are core functions of a state government that is having difficulty housing homeless kids or putting social workers into the lives of kid's whose very reality is falling apart. In this case, I think the development of non-profits or actually selling off of these assets to private or local public entities is necessary. I love the bears at Stone Zoo, just don't think it's a government function, although I think a beer garden at Stone Zoo would be really cool, I don't think the government's going to be trucking in Hefeweizen anytime soon.

So just a few quick ideas, I'd like to get into the complexities of transportation issues, but I got nothing, I just want to see some discourse about these and other issues other than we need to cut! or we need to raise revenues!