“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” Thomas Jefferson
In the Legislature there is clear accountability and authority around spending and revenues.
Still, one of the practical problems during these challenging times is that the traditional legislative structure and process of analyzing bold government reform may not be sufficient.
We are, quite simply, nervous about tackling really big structural problems because the scope of the challenge is greater than any of us.
And that’s the point.
We are very good at managing the tactical and operational challenges of a particular one or two year budget. Where we often struggle is how best to explore large-scale structural and systems issues.
At McCaw Cellular Communication I was impressed with a total quality management practice of creating special swat teams across disciplines to tackle large-scale, systems issues. We mixed front line workers through senior executives across various functional areas into a single team with accountability and authority to address a major structural challenge—and to come up with answers. Examples included core business functions such as reducing churn among our cellular customers, radically increasing revenue from data services, expanding distribution partnerships across new markets and more.
Perhaps we should consider creating and empowering a special swat team of legislators and others charged with specifically exploring large-scale government reform.
Everyone knows that government studies, commissions and task forces often end up on the dusty shelf. Yet during these challenging times, as we prepare for a tough 2011-2013 budget cycle, I believe we should create a major task force—the Government Transformation Initiative—charged with asking the extremely tough political, policy and financial questions based upon these core long-term ideas and many more.
Thomas Jefferson encourages us to have courage. In our corner of our country today, that means asking big questions.
“If we were designing government in Washington State from scratch today, what would it look like?”
“What level of government should provide what level of service?”
“What does state government do well and what does it do poorly?”
“How can we get more transparency into how money flows in our state between cities, counties and the state?”
“What is the reality of our tax obligation in Washington and does it meet our needs?”
“What do the people of our state want and need from government?”
“Why does our state government fail to embrace the reality that education is our paramount duty?”
Tackling systems questions is rarely rewarded politically, and few find it intellectually interesting. But long term planning and strategic analysis of our systems challenges is essential to a living, breathing and vibrant organization.
We need to ask big, uncomfortable, serious and thoughtful questions about what government should look like in the new century. We need a team-based process—that reaches out to the 6.7 million people of our state—to embark on this journey. It is bigger than any one candidate or campaign or special interest or even era. It is about the people and our ability to meet their needs. It is about community organizing around a bold notion that we can create the type of government that we want. We are not tied to old models, systems and structures if we don’t want to be.
Our state government is 120 years old and it is, of course, a monopoly. The challenge of our time is to act with courageous honesty, bold conviction and a youthful eye toward our new century.
We need government reform that reconnects people with their own needs, services, taxes and benefits. The question today is not bigger government or smaller government but better government.
A Government Transformation Task Force should not be about politics, parties, interest groups or ideological turf. It should be about freshness, energy, reflection and courageous honesty. Imagine if we assembled the best of the best—public, private, progressive, conservative and more—to tackle bold systems challenges.
Would the work product sit on the dusty shelf? Perhaps. But only if it became an insiders game of control of message and content. If we reached out, engaged with the people of our state and embraced the larger systems challenge with courage and dignity and purpose, it would bring deep and genuine value. And perhaps some new ideas.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
The Seattle Times’ Andrew Garber wrote on Sunday one of the more insightful stories of the 2010 Legislative Session here.
While he made the pitch that the number and cost of state employees is high, he didn’t ask the more interesting question: Is the number of state employees in 2009, an all time high, of 112,000, the ‘right’ number?
Is it too high, too low, or just about right to meet the needs of our state?
Who knows. We don’t have objective, measurable data or models or probably even a methodology to assess that question. Too many teachers and professors, prison guards and foster care caseworkers? Too few transportation engineers and road crews?
Yet it’s hard not to appreciate the 800-lb gorilla in the room aspect of Garber’s story. With 60% of the cost of state government linked to wages and benefits for state employees, we can’t fail to ask the tough question: Do we have the right number of people doing the right work? Without that question answered, how can we know that we should reduce spending on public employees or go in the opposite direction? It’s not only about tax levels, it’s also about service levels and meeting the public’s needs.
Every company, government, non profit and other organization in the nation is stretching their comfort zone to ask these difficult questions. Government is not business–and our work is about providing essential public services–so demand for services increases during difficult times. Still, the only way we will seize the opportunity of this crisis is if we courageously ask core questions about the function of government. Systems reforms are struggling in Olympia this year, as one would expect, and we’re unlikely to do much structural change. We are not really asking the hardest questions.
Beyond numbers, the deeper question is: What are the core functions of government in the 21st Century?
Upon reflection this is, in the end, one of the real reasons that I am so deeply resentful of the Wheeler data center building. It is the wrong strategy, wrong technical direction and the wrong business model. My tactical battle to fight the data center is over, but not my front line attack on our lack of an enterprise wide strategy for the $1.2 billion-plus we spend each year on technology goes on.
My goal is to build broad consensus of the idea that hosting data is just not a core function of government and we shouldn’t be in this line of work. The larger dialogue about the size of government can’t happen effectively until we look under the hood of every area of government spending with more rigor.
During these very difficult times, when we are closing group foster homes and laying off fresh faced new kindergarten teachers, we need to have more courage in deciding what our real priorities are for our state government. I may not know much, but I know that hosting email systems is not one of them.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
Look at the gracious apology from the president and CEO of Toyota as a comparison to our nation’s lack of accountability in society.
Yes there is a Japanese tradition that is different than our own, but imagine if we could embrace the idea in public life of being more open to simple apologies when mistakes are made.
I believe our nation is hungry for courageous honesty, deep humility and genuine transparency around our political dialogue. That’s a small part of the reason Obama’s genuine dialogue with House Republicans was so appreciated by the national community.
My hope is that we in state government can begin to embrace a new level of honesty. Our tax system is broken and needs repair, but we must have the courage to embrace bold government systems reforms before we tackle taxes. We must embrace the hard work of speaking truth to our stakeholders and allies, progressive and conservative, to move our state forward.
Will the Republicans embrace a dialogue that goes deeper than ‘no new taxes’ and government is the central problem? Will the Democrats courageously discuss new ways of running the business of government so that the status quo can change in a more progressive fashion?
The 2010 legislative session requires us to think, act and move forward in new ways. So far, we are struggling to get our footing.
We are so much more than what we’ve become.
It starts with courageous honesty and deep humility of purpose from all of us. Leadership matters.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
Judge rules against state in a huge court case about public funding of education: Hooray!
King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick ruled today that the State of Washington has failed to make ample provision for K-12 public education–our state’s paramount duty.
Erlick ruled the state’s funding of public education is neither ample nor dependable, and that districts must rely upon levy revenues to supporta program of basic education. Seattle levy vote is February 9. A few years from today, will levies be the norm in the same fashion? Who knows but the future requires us to embrace the fundamental structural dynamic between state and local funding.
The policy, political, social and financial implications of this ruling will be simply stunning for our state–and our kids–in the long-run.
And that’s fantastic.
A key piece of the ruling is that the Legislature must proceed with “real and measurable progress” toward two outcomes: Determining the cost of the education program and determining how it will fund that program.
Last year’s House Bill 2261, the bold education reform effort we proudly pushed forward, is expressly recognized by the judge as a profoundly important step forward. Yet since it is not funded the judge said it’s simply not enough.
This court loss forces a courageously honest dialogue about how we fund, deliver and provide public education.
We can no longer hide from our lack of consistency, clarity and sufficiency in our funding of education. Let’s not even appeal the case: Let’s embrace the learning and get busy funding education first!
Your parnter in serivce,
Reuven.
After months of waging a spirited, public war on this blog and a more private one in the Legislature against the Washington State “Wheeler” Data Center project–a $300 million decision that I believe with conviction taxpayers will regret for decades–I am today formally ending my vigorous opposition.
It is time to accept that construction is well underway, the cranes tower over the Olympia skyline, and my post-2009 legislative efforts to stop the data center piece of the massive building project will not see victory.
I accept the reality that my opposition was too little too late. I gave it everything I had and, as a freshman lawmaker new to state bond issues, learned a great deal personally, politically and professionally.
On a personal level, I do believe that had I been in office longer than just a few short months when it all hit, I could have helped bring about a different conclusion. My thanks to the many legislators and others who offered insight, counsel and perspective and to those who stood against what I believe is a $300 million mistake. My deep and sincere apologies to those who may have felt my public opposition was disrespectful to their role and opinion or was simply technically wrong. It was not my intention to criticize any person, only the troubling lack of transparency, openness and access to critical public information that led to this unfortunate decision.
I remain deeply distressed that neither the Information Services Board–the legislative-driven panel charged with strategic oversight of our state’s technology–nor any other public entity conducted an independent analysis of the state data center project. There was no independent, second opinion of the technical and financial plan to the one provided by the state agency that stood to benefit from the expansive project. This was a profoundly serious mistake that we must not repeat.
To give you context to my decision to stop fighting the state data center, recently the Legislature’s non partisan, professional staff using independent bond counsel concluded that the state’s hands are effectively constrained due to the unique type of ‘63-20 bonds’ that have been used in this transaction. These bonds effectively hand control over the project to a non profit entity and the state has limited ability to make changes during the construction process. In a cruel twist of fate, after the project is complete–and the full building is constructed–the state has great flexibility to modify the use of the facility as desired for its own interests. Thus, we could construct the $300 million facility in full and then change the use of the building without ramifications. And we may ultimately do just that. But for now, the massive data center hole in the Olympia ground marches on. I hope this is a teachable moment that there is a dark side to 63-20 bonds and the financing tool should be used with great care.
My opposition to the state data center has never been about anything other than a deep seeded belief that the technology decision around the 110,000 square foot data center is a vestige of 1980s and 1990s thinking. It is, in my view, inconsistent with the view of a vast majority of other states and the Obama Administration that are aggressively decommissioning large scale, publicly-owned, proprietary, hardware-centric data centers.
Cloud computing–in highly energy and cost efficient private data centers where virtualization and other approaches are built in from the outset–may not win in the marketplace of ideas today but it will ultimately be the standard worldwide in both public and private sectors. What we are paying for as a value-added infrastructure today will ultimately be a commodity where price and quality features are easily measured. I do not believe the public sector can successfully compete on price and quality with the private sector in this area, nor should they. I want state employees adding value by overseeing the safety and wellness of foster youth, nursing homes, schools and other uses of public dollars–not watching lights blink on clunky old 1980s databases.
In my view, the Wheeler state data center is on the wrong side of the technology history of tomorrow. The project still does not have a true ‘total cost of ownership’ from which we can judge apples to apples cost models for the state’s data. We are, in effect, building a $300 million solution before we truly understand the scope and scale of the problem.
The consultant Unisys will provide a comprehensive analysis of how to effectively implement state agency data into the Wheeler data center, and until that review is complete it’s hard to know how best to make this implementation efficient. My intuition is that the state data center is dramatically overbuilt with excess capacity for the state’s needs. But that conclusion must wait until the report is available in the coming months.
We will have a modern, 110,000 square foot state data center in Olympia blocks from the State Capitol building.
Now our challenge is to embrace the opportunity of this investment. To make bold, courageous, forceful, non political and technically-independent decisions as a state to aggressively consolidate our technology approach and spending.
I have an excel spread sheet in front of me with $54,166,000 in new requests for technology in the state’s supplemental budget, on top of the $170,230,000 we funded in the 2009-2011 two year biennial budget. And that is only what staff can find. There are clearly more dollars hidden inside various agency budgets. The effort to bring transparency to this journey is underway.
The ’systems issue’ is that through this state data center strategy, the State of Washington has chosen to go down the path of complete and total internal consolidation of infrastructure, systems, networks, applications and services.
If we’re going to do it in this fashion, then let’s do it right. The new battle is to ensure that we embrace an enterprise-wide strategy. That is not the same thing as consolidation, although that will occur in some fashion, but it does mean we design a strategic statewide strategy together.
The Department of Information Services is our state’s IT department despite the fact that we have decentralized CIOs in each agency with their own budgets, staff and service delivery models. This model has done well on some projects, poorly on others. Like all agencies DIS has challenges internally with employees and externally with customers. Now, the people of DIS–who I believe want to be successful and are committed to doing their very best–are charged with leading our technology strategy into the 21st Century. We must support their efforts on all fronts. Their success belongs to us all.
The old model of widely divergent strategies, vendors, standards and systems is inconsistent with our new strategy of a strong, coordinated IT strategy. Agencies can no longer go it alone.
We need fundamental structural and systems reform of how we spend our $1.2 billion technology dollars a year in Washington. We need transparency and openness and courageous honesty–and vigorous public debate instead of private deals–about the best technology strategy going forward. We need a new look and a new outlook to how we embrace technology as a tool to serve citizens, not as an end itself.
A vigorous dialogue and debate is essential.
I did not run for the state Legislature to work on IT issues. But I cannot sit idly by as we spend billions without proper oversight or accountability while we eliminate modest scholarship programs for foster youth.
Technology is the largest category in the state budget that has yet to experience ruthlessly honest and independent oversight and analysis. It is time for radical systems change to unleash the potential that technology holds for the people of our state.
I am, of course, but one voice and many really great people in Olympia are working to profoundly transform our approach to technology in state government.
Join us in this new chapter. If you ideas, suggestions, concerns or insight, or if you believe I am on the wrong path, please share it with me publicly or privately.
None of us want technology to be a department down the hall.
The question today is not bigger government or smaller government but better government.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
For all the buzz and anxiety around today’s blogs and advocacy journalism, there are few things more uplifting than to open the morning newspaper and see a screaming headline from a real deal media investigation.
Today’s Seattle Times expose by Michael J. Berens, “Seniors for Sale: How the aged and frail are exploited in Washington’s adult family homes,” is the sort of bold investigative journalism we need in our city, state and nation. I have no more data to judge this story than what I’ve read today. But I appreciate the story’s approach and the extraordinary time and money investment the newspaper committed to this topic. And I am repulsed at the conclusions including the lack of state government oversight.
Last year the Legislature passed a B&O tax credit for the newspaper industry as the Seattle PI crashed and the Seattle Times staggered under the weight of a changing market. Many criticized the tax credit as hypocritical since the Seattle Times editorial board frequently weighs in against state spending. Yet, I stood on the House floor and spoke out fervently in favor of the tax break not because it was a gift to the Times but because our city and state faced the prospect of losing both daily newspapers of record.
Like so many others, I stand with Thomas Jefferson in a passionate belief that a free, aggressive, open and bold press is part of the spiritual core of our Democracy.
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.” Thomas Jefferson quote (that also graced the walls of the Seattle PI offices).
Many argue that the Seattle Times is more conservative than the people it serves. Many argue the editorial board is hypocritical in calling for less government spending, less taxes, less regulation but higher quality and more robust public services. It is not difficult to argue either side of this case. I miss the Seattle PI’s printed edition not only because of the editorial diversity, but because of the fierce conviction of purpose the paper brought to investigative journalism in Seattle.
Today, I would not hesitate to read a thousand editorials criticizing the city, county, state or federal government from the Seattle Times so long as I can read one good, solid, genuine, meaningful and passionate investigative report–like today’s piece by Berens–as a part of the deal.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
The following email below arrived today announcing that the state Department of Ecology has fined King County for the West Point Treatment Plant spill that occured in December of last year.
The plant at idealic Discovery Park–Magnolia’s treasure–is an important part of our city’s public infrasturcture.
What is interesting about this little note is that it is a symbolic representation of the need for government accountability regardless of the consequences, politics or ability to wave it off.
An argument can be made that $24,000 fine is a silly amount given that it probably took much more than that in employee staff time to assess and study the spill. But it’s important that governments at all levels be forced to ‘eat their own dog food’, if you will, regarding regulation.
Too often when one entity of government is at fault another level of government waves off the consequences. Perhaps this small fine is appropriate and perhaps not, I can’t judge that decision, but I appreciate the symbolism regardless.
Discovery Park is one of our city’s greatest treasures. The spill was not horrific by environmental standards but it is an eye opening reminder of the need for diligence.
Here’s the notice:
“The state Department of Ecology is fining King County $24,000 over the Dec. 14-15, 2009 discharge of untreated wastewater from the West Point Treatment Plant Seattle. Ecology found the release could have been prevented, and, once it occurred, greatly reduced. The 8.7-million-gallon release began at 10:02 p.m. Dec. 14, 2009, and lasted 2 hours and 52 minutes. An electrical short circuit in a no-longer-used system, coupled with operator error, caused an emergency bypass gate to open, diverting a portion of the incoming wastewater around the treatment system and into Puget Sound off West Point. The release had originally been estimated at 10 million gallons.”
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
Do you want the phone books that are delivered on your doorstep?
Very few folks know that you can take a simple, easy and immediate step to manage your preferences around yellow pages, white pages and other phone books.
For Qwest, you can can opt out of receiving a phone book by visiting this site.
For the yellow pages, visit this site.
A number of bills are being introduced across the country that make phone book delivery an ‘opt in’ model versus an ‘opt out’ model. This is one of those situations where people should have a right to make decisions for themselves about whether they want or need a phone book. But if the marketplace doesn’t work, we should consider acting.
Everyday we look for opportunities to make our environment better and to improve our quality of life. Sometimes legislation is necessary and sometimes it’s not.
Before we regulate this issue, the industry should take the bull by the horns and get serious about self regulating. I think these two websites show that the folks in the phone book business are doing just that. It will be interesting to watch how it works. The impact of phone books on landfills is enormous. I’m sure the companies only want their product in homes where consumers appreciate their offering, which is why they are making it easy for folks to opt out from receiving them.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
Pensions are real deal work in state capitals nationwide
The Seattle PI’s discussion of this issue here raises, once again, a long standing tension in state government.
This frightening opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, by an author who advocates against public employee unions, also raises the very serious issue.
And this article from former California Speaker Willie Brown calls out for a second look:
“If we as a state want to make a New Year’s resolution, I suggest taking a good look at the California we have created. From our out-of-sync tax system to our out-of-control civil service, it’s time for politicians to begin an honest dialogue about what we’ve become.
Take the civil service.
The system was set up so politicians like me couldn’t come in and fire the people (relatives) hired by the guy they beat and replace them with their own friends and relatives.
Over the years, however, the civil service system has changed from one that protects jobs to one that runs the show.
The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life.
But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor, gradually expanded pay and benefits to private-sector levels while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages that pay ex-workers almost as much as current workers.
Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide for most officeholders. But at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact that 80 percent of the state, county and city budget deficits are due to employee costs.”
(End of Brown quote and article)
My predecessor in the House, Rep. Helen Sommers, knew every inch of state pension policy like her Magnolia neighborhood. And she led efforts to ensure our state has among the strongest systems in the nation. I wouldn’t and couldn’t become a similar expert if I stayed in Olympia for a generation. Yet it is simply no longer possible for us as a state to hold back from the deeper dialogue about both our pension obligations and the structural costs we realize.
In order to truly and genuinely embrace the opportunity of this economic crisis, we need to put everything on the table. Everything.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
The 2010 Competitive Redbook is, well, a ‘red book’ that lists 60 pages of rankings in economic, educational, housing and many other sectors of society. It’s produced by the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a consortium of business interests including the Washington Research Council, Washington Routable, Realtors, Association of Washington Business.
Regardless of your politics or interest area, the data is extremely useful and insightful and I look forward to the report each year. I even admit to carrying around the little book for frequent review.
I plan to make a number of posts with my thoughts and reflections on interesting tid bits of data. For me it’s hard not to start at page 35 with “Total Fall Enrollment as a Percentage of the Population for public institutions of higher education,” (Fall 2006 is the latest available although I suspect the general percentages remain steady).
Washington state ranks 23rd in the nation in the combined percentages of students enrolled in institutions of higher education. Middle of the pack? Seem acceptable? Take a closer look.
We rank an impressive 5th in the nation, 2.92% of the population, enrolled in our state’s robust community and technical colleges. We rank 46th, 1.44%, in the number enrolled in four year undergraduate institutions. And–believe it or not–we rank a humiliating 50th, 0.31%, in the percentage of students enrolled in graduate or professional degree production programs. Our two year system is strong but our four year system is struggling. We need both of them–aligned, engaged, connected, coordinated–to unleash the potential of our state’s future. The political infighting between the two ’subcultures’ is hurting us all. And yet there is a certain inevitability to this disfunction until state government decides to embrace both systems in a more strategic approach to their roles, missions, virtues and capabilities.
The irony is that everyone in Olympia knows the dark side of this picture: We are among the most educated states in the nation, with Seattle close to the very top of major cities with residents holding bachelor or higher degrees. So what gives?
We import folks with college degrees and we are falling behind, rapidly and forcefully, in educating our own citizens.
According to the little red book, we rank 6th in the nation in the ‘net (domestic) migration. We’ve learned that a very, very large number of those moving here are highly educated folks. And that’s good. But not to the point of our failure to educate our own children.
The serious public policy problem is that we don’t ‘feel’ the acute pain of this problem directly enough. It’s a long term, structural, systemic issue in a world of short term rewards. We are able to fill jobs with out of state imports and while business is deeply frustrated about this, they deal with the reality in which they live. But I know that parents are feeling this crunch more than ever as they see their own children struggling to get a post secondary education.
Until parents, K-12 advocates, community activists, teachers and others ‘own’ the cold, hard, ugly reality that we are failing to sufficiently educate our own people, we will continue to create a less educated ‘native’ group of future citizens. We will rely upon importing college educated citizens and a workforce until one day we hit the tipping point on our economy. That tipping point, like in global warming, is here. We just can’t seem to get our hands around it.
This is a symbolic representation of our lack of a top notch education system as a state. There is plenty of blame to go around. The Legislature has not funded higher education sufficiently, our K-12 system is not preparing students well enough to succeed, our higher education dollar is torn between a two and four year system that looks too much like another ’silo’ rather than an integrated strategy, we have a top down model of regulating our universities. The list goes on and on.
Next week we will release the 2010 supplemental budget. Regardless of what you read into the funding levels and footnotes, I am confident you’ll agree that we are not being courageously honest about this extremely serious, complex and difficult systems challenge. My deepest hope is that one day we soon we will.
This is the work of our time in higher education.
We have a beautiful image of ourselves–our perception–as one of the most educated, progressive, entrepreneurial, innovative states. And in a very real way it is true. But the ‘real deal’ reason is that we attract the best and the brightest from other states who move to Washington to seek their fortune and to build quality of life. As for our own children and the dream of widespread access to higher education, that is the dark and ugly side of reality to this picture.
We are so much more than what we’ve become.
Your partner in service,
Reuven.
