Analysis: Every so often, Texas government needs a reboot

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One parable about problem-solving is about tips on how to load rocks right into a truck, or a giant field. Begin with the boulders, then the stones, then the pebbles. Get the order mistaken, and the container will get full earlier than the rocks are all in. Get the order proper, and the pebbles fill in areas across the stones, and the stones fill in areas across the boulders.

Do the large stuff first. The little stuff, final.

What if authorities labored like that? It occurs from time to time, simply as a reminder of the facility of collective group motion — the fundamental thought behind authorities — and of what’s doable.

However it doesn’t occur typically sufficient within the regular course of presidency enterprise. It occurs when the traditional course of enterprise is interrupted, both by occasions or on objective.

Texas has a 30-year-old instance to think about. Comptroller Bob Bullock, working for lieutenant governor, proposed a “efficiency overview” of state authorities, and his successor, John Sharp, really put it collectively and made it a full-time operation in his company. Sharp additionally made a public attraction for presidency that “works higher and prices much less,” a option to contain voters and lift the stakes for lawmakers who is likely to be reluctant to go alongside.

The concept was easy: Rethink the whole lot the state is doing, attempt to make it extra environment friendly, weed out issues that don’t work, suggest new concepts, get monetary savings the place doable and remake all of it into one thing higher. The primary overview included suggestions to consolidate state companies and privatize some state companies, amongst different issues. Sharp, who’s now the chancellor of the Texas A&M College System, stated adopting all of it will free greater than $8 billion for financial savings or different state packages. The Legislature didn’t like all the concepts however went together with lots of it.

Political work is about imaginative and prescient, about setting targets, about successful public assist so you can also make legal guidelines with these targets in thoughts. The efficiency evaluations had been extra about how issues work, partly to release cash and different assets that may very well be used for different authorities and companies, partly simply to make issues work higher.

It’s an train in separating the operation of presidency — how issues work — from the route of presidency — what, in broader phrases, authorities ought to do. The nuts and bolts on one hand, the imaginative and prescient factor on the opposite.

Massive organizations want a kick within the pants from time to time. Spring cleansing. Reconsideration. An excellent, laborious questioning about what’s working, what’s not, whether or not the targets now are what they was. A shakeup.

“I believe it’s at all times a good suggestion to overview the effectivity and value effectiveness of state packages,” says Billy Hamilton, the deputy chancellor and chief monetary officer of the Texas A&M College System. He was Sharp’s deputy comptroller in 1991, and managed the primary and subsequent evaluations.

“The efficiency overview made state authorities higher. It launched new concepts and approaches. It shook issues up and have become a nationwide mannequin. Over time, packages construct up ‘plaque.’ There’s at all times a have to take away the buildup — or no less than ask laborious questions.”

They saved some cash, releasing up billions that had been tangled in varied packages to be used in different components of the state finances — a crucial promoting level on the time, as a result of state funds had been pinched and the Legislature was attempting to put in writing a finances that didn’t reduce packages pricey to voters.

There was lots of squirming within the government department of presidency — that’s the place a lot of the state’s packages and companies are — however it was helpful sufficient that the federal authorities and different state governments copied it. California even borrowed Hamilton to assist run its effort.

It progressively performed out, because the choices grew to become much less and fewer daring. You may make a splash with the primary set of suggestions, however every subsequent effort is somewhat weaker than its predecessor. And offers made to move varied concepts additionally get in the best way: An thought shelved in commerce for one thing else — quit this concept and we’ll approve that one — can’t be introduced again two years later. A deal is a deal.

When Sharp moved on, the following comptroller, Carole Keeton Rylander, picked up the efficiency evaluations. However she was thought-about — correctly — as a political competitor to then-Gov. Rick Perry, and lawmakers had grown weary of the biennial flood of proposals from the comptroller’s workplace.

The Legislature took them away, placing efficiency evaluations within the fingers of the Legislative Finances Board, the place they’ve light into an all-but-forgotten train largely ignored by lawmakers.

The state’s efficiency stories have been successfully buried, however there are many locations the place state authorities operations may use a scrubbing. That may release some cash. It’d simply make issues work higher, do away with some underperforming packages and add some issues policymakers want to do.

It’s a option to get away from the small rocks — the noisy little concepts of most political campaigns — and on to the large stuff each Texan is aware of about and hopes will probably be addressed by the elected of us in Austin: good faculties, good roads, a powerful security web, honest taxes and all the remaining. The boulders.

Editor’s observe: Ross Ramsey labored within the workplace of the Texas comptroller from 1996-98.

Disclosure: The Texas A&M College System and the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full checklist of them right here.