Bureaucrats On Display
Wow. There are soooooooooooooo many things to comment upon in this story, but I’ll attempt to be concise.
At least three Wisconsin state agencies say they can’t meet Gov. Jim Doyle’s orders to come up with plans to cut spending by 10 percent
When did Doyle make that request? A week ago? And they have already concluded that there’s nothing to cut? I don’t buy it for a minute. If these clowns were in the private sector, any responsible CEO would have sacked them immediately because they obviously aren’t even trying.
Secretary of State Doug La Follette said a 10 percent cut is “simply impossible,” in a letter sent to Doyle’s budget director.
The position of Secretary of State in Wisconsin is pretty meaningless. It’s a state wide elected position and third in line to replace the governor should the worst happen. The entire office should have been abolished and rolled into the administration decades ago. Certainly, it can do with less. And it appears that the Secretary of State isn’t exactly burning the midnight oil.
La Follette was out of the office Wednesday and did not immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment.
On to the next bureaucrat unwilling to cut spending…
Railroad Commission Secretary Roger Breske said such a cut would reduce his office to a “dog-and-pony show.”
[...]
He said that would amount to a $48,700 cut that would require laying off one of two full-time safety analysts.
The analysts are responsible for investigating rail crossing sites, drainage, bridge, clearance and other safety compliance issues across the state. Laying off one of them, in order to meet the budget cut, would put public safety at risk and “reduce this office to a dog-and-pony show and undermine Wisconsin’s strong railroad tradition,” Breske wrote.
How many new railroad lines are being built in Wisconsin in the next couple of years? Presumably, the existing lines have already been thoroughly analyzed, so we’re only talking about new construction. Breske is clearly a bureaucrat of a tiny office and is being fiercely protective of his fiefdom.
Moving on…
And the state Board on Aging and Long Term Care said meeting the governor’s order to cut “makes no sense.”
[...]
Heather Bruemmer, executive director of the Board on Aging and Long Term Care, said the cut would have to come from its ombudsman program, which is state-funded and charged with looking after the rights and welfare of people utilizing long-term care.
“In light of the importance of the agency’s programs to the public health, welfare and safety, it makes no sense to follow through with the plan to reduce this agency’s operating expenses by 10 percent,” Bruemmer said. She asked that the agency be exempted.
While an ombudsman program is theoretically a good thing, the people in the programs are protected by law and have access to the judicial system. They can sure the state of they are abused. Also, I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that the ombudsman program is the only area with room to cut. This appears to be a bureaucrat trying to scare the public by only offering up the ombudsman program to the public.
All of this show the worst of government bureaucracy on display. They are fiercely defending their budgets and territory and don’t give a crap about the taxpayers. Meanwhile, in the rest of Wisconsin, people have lost HALF of their investments. People’s homes are worth 80% of what they were a year ago. Layoffs are becoming more rampant and people fear for their jobs.
If the bureaucrats under Doyle refuse to cut their budgets themselves, then it’s up to the legislature to do it for them. In private life, if the money is not there you find a way to make it work. Government should do the same. If the people in charge can’t manage their portfolios, then Doyle should sack them and put in place people who know what the hell they are doing.
Didn’t that scumbag campaign two years ago saying he balanced the budget? So how the F@#$ did he run up a 5.4 Billion deficit in two years? Any Doyle supporters care to comment?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 21, 2008 at 0004 hrs
Take a step back Owen. This isn’t a directive by Doyle to cut budgets by 10%, that would be his job as the guy who puts the executive budget together.
The instructions are to submit a budget under the senario of a 10% cut. Agencies are told if they cannot absorb such a cut, due to being unable to continue to operate or provide services, to make their case. It is an information gathering tool for the Gov to figure out where best to enact expenditure reductions.
I can’t imagine Breske arguing a different position. It looks like there are just a handful of people in his agency, with a budget under $500,000. They are down to two inspectors in their agecy after losing one in the current budget. His argument is essentially that if you cut 10% from his budget there is no agency left to operate.
Now you might (would?) argue that the agency should be eliminated, and its duties absorbed elsewhere. I doubt Doyle will do that seeing as he just appointed Breske to his position, and saving $50 grand isn’t exactly the solution to the $5.4 billion hole, but a fair argument still. But that isn’t the question at this point, the question is what happens to the agency under this senario.
Breske, as someone charged with managing the agency, is right in his statement, that a 10% cut essentially eliminates the agency, and if the state wants his agency to continue in its duties it cannot impose such a cut.
What conclusions Doyle reaches based on this information will surely be fair game for debate and differing opinions. He could submit a budget that essentially leaves the agency alone with a zero percent increase. He could eliminate the agency and assign its duties to DOT. He could have the agency absorbed by DOT, eliminate a position, and have it operate as a division of DOT. There are plenty of options to debate. But I don’t think Breske’s answer to the 10% cut senario is debatable in the least.
While I won’t argue with you about the usefullness of the Sec of State office, or the guy occupying it for that matter, it is probably a similar situtation. There likely isn’t a ton to cut other than eliminating a position. Depending on how many positions there are, maybe Doyle introduces a budget that required such a sacrifice from this pretty meaningless office. Nonetheless, from the point of view of the person in charge of carrying out the duties of the office saying we can’t make due with a 10% cut without a change in the duties of our office is a reasonable position to take.
Didn’t that scumbag campaign two years ago saying he balanced the budget? So how the F@#$ did he run up a 5.4 Billion deficit in two years? Any Doyle supporters care to comment?
Well see, there’s this recession thingy going on that is responsible for the amount of tax revenue being collected by the state decreasing drastically, and blowing a hole that accounts for approximately 70% of that deficit into the state’s budget. You might want to look around, as it is kinda happening to every state in the country.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 21, 2008 at 0144 hrs
If the people in charge can’t manage their portfolios, then Doyle should sack them and put in place people who know what the hell they are doing.
The problem is that Wisconsin voters, by and large, haven’t been smart enough to sack their spineless, stupid, worthless politicians who don’t know what the hell they are doing. Put me, Owen, Lefty, a couple others, and a keg in a conference room and I bet we could find $5.4 billion in a few hours. But politicians won’t cut any of the programs that are causing all of the spending problems in the first place.
The problem here isn’t Roger Breske. It’s elected officials who are completely unwilling to prioritize spending and make the cuts themselves.
Republicans and Democrats are both guilty of ducking, time and time again. Instead of having the balls to say “yeah, we need to eliminate X, Y, Z,” they instead say “well, let’s just ask A through Z to each cut 10%, and let them figure out how to do it.”
The problem with that approach is that it encourages the kind of wasteful behavior that most all taxpayers would like to stop. If you are an agency head in Wisconsin, there’s no incentive to manage your agency responsibly, because when push comes to shove, the Legislature and the Governor treat the good kids just like the bad ones.
Run a bloated, wasteful office filled with non-essential programs? Cut 10%. Run a streamlined, efficient office? Yeah, congratulations, you can cut 10% too.
Owen is right. The Secretary of State’s office is worthless in Wisconsin. Tommy stripped that office of most of its power and now it just collects dust. You know what would be novel? A bipartisan push to amend the constitution and just eliminate it.
While we’re at it, let’s kill off the Treasurer’s office too. Give unclaimed property to DOA, EdVest to DOR, and LGIP to SWIB.
Eliminate most all of the optional MA services that Wisconsin covers. Push back all new highway construction for two years.
And while we’re at it, let’s give those lazy, stupid voters some responsibility. Cut K-12 by a billion dollars a year and get rid of the property tax freeze. Then dare school boards to raise the levy and not get recalled.
There are lots of ways to cut $5.4 billion - just not a lot of ways that politicians are brave enough to avail themselves of.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on November 21, 2008 at 0433 hrs
How many new railroad lines are being built in Wisconsin in the next couple of years? Presumably, the existing lines have already been thoroughly analyzed, so we’re only talking about new construction.
Like server hardware, the job isn’t done just because you rack the computer and boot it up. A road needs maintenance on a constant basis, including the crossings: fix a problem at a crossing and it’s gotta be inspected by someone, right?
Posted by Brian Dunbar on November 21, 2008 at 0829 hrs
I hit enter too soon ...
The railroads we’ve got actually do the state a lot of good - getting thousands of tons (at least) of freight a day from here to there. Ensuring these work as expected and conform to applicable regulations is a valid job for the state to perform.
Posted by Brian Dunbar on November 21, 2008 at 0832 hrs
“...Ensuring these work as expected and conform to applicable regulations is a valid job for the state to perform. ...”
Or the railroads could do it. Don’t you think the railroads want safe tracks and crossings?Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 21, 2008 at 0846 hrs
Or the railroads could do it
Maybe they have better uses for their money, like this?
http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/03/06/afx4741599.html
Railroad operator Union Pacific Corp. spent $9.7 million in 2007 to lobby against potential new regulations on the railroad industry, among other issues.
The Omaha, Neb.-based company spent $6.3 million in the second half of 2007 to lobby the federal government, according to a disclosure form posted online Feb. 14 by the Senate’s public records office.
.......................
The company also lobbied against a bill to eliminate certain exemptions for railroad operators to antitrust law and opposed legislation to mandate a DOT strategy for improving railroad safety.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 21, 2008 at 0915 hrs
C’mon RS, everyone here knows the only $5.4 billion I could find is in new tax revenue. 8^).
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 21, 2008 at 0930 hrs
Why can’t the DOT do the job or railroad regulation? To claim an agency cannot cut 10% is bogus? They can cut down on travel, office expenses, overtime, utilities and more. With the ost of gas coming down, they can save money there.
In Nevada, we have cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the State and local budget. In the Clark County School district Las Vegas) we have cut close to $400 millon of our budget. It’s not easy but it was done and we will have to cut some more.
So, these bureaucrats who say they cannot cut are liars.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 21, 2008 at 0933 hrs
I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that the ombudsman program is the only area with room to cut. This appears to be a bureaucrat trying to scare the public by only offering up the ombudsman program to the public
You’re not alone. It’s the “we’ll cut sports” game.
Posted by dad29 on November 21, 2008 at 0951 hrs
In addition to cutting by 10% per department, there are easily 10% of the departments that aren’t even needed. We must scrub the system.
But that said, people fail to recognize why spending is up, and they refuse the fix. Politicians spend money because they are paid to spend money. By the special interests that fund their elections.
Live with it, or fix it!
Wonder why we need four lanes to Chicago, an expansion of the Oconomowoc interchange, the tearing down of the Hoan bridge, and rebuilding its replacement, and roads to nowhere? Follow the road contractor’s money folks. This results in taxes!!!
We have a corrupt political system and it is costing us an arm and a leg. We don’t want the latter but refuse to fix the former.
Posted by Jack Lohman on November 21, 2008 at 1054 hrs
Doing the “10% across the board” cuts feed the “we can’t cut here, so therefore we can’t cut anywhere” and the “but it’s for the CHILDREN!” arguments.
What they should do is say, cut 10% out of your budget. We understand there are some items that are either absolutely necessary or a fixed cost (i.e., utilities). We also know that not every single item is that, so you are to go through every line in your budget and determine what cuts can be made so that the bottom line reflects a 10% cut. This means that some items may not reflect any cut, some might be the 10% and some might be much more than 10%.
Posted by hsgbdmama on November 21, 2008 at 1216 hrs
Guess what. Here in the real world we are expected to cut our operating costs every year. That way, we don’t have to raise prices to our customers and we can maintain our margins. When its tight we are reducing workforce through attrition and increasing cash flow thru commercial terms.
It is very doable when you need to. I agree with RS, get a couple of people from the real world and the money could be found in a matter of hours.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 21, 2008 at 1611 hrs
Fellow elitist RS said,
The problem is that Wisconsin voters, by and large, haven’t been smart enough to sack their spineless, stupid, worthless politicians who don’t know what the hell they are doing.
However,
Put me, Owen, Lefty, a couple others, and a keg in a conference room and I bet we could find $5.4 billion in a few hours
Indeed, I fully support the concept of and would like to join this fascist junta. Probably the only way to get things done sensibly.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 21, 2008 at 2058 hrs
This is just like Barret saying that the only thing left to cut in city gummit is firefighters.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 24, 2008 at 0935 hrs
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