A handful of bills moving through the Legislature this year touch on governmental restructuring ideas. Breaking up the massive Department of Social and Health Services is one, consolidating the many related departments of natural resources is another, coordinating our use of technology, outsourcing liquor stores, and more.

Whether they have merit individually or not it’s hard to see all of them, including my own, House Bill 3178, as more than a modest step forward and an uncomfortable dance around the edges of change. Still, few should expect much heavy new policy shifting during a short legislative session when the challenges are so great.

As I have maintained from the outset, the larger systems challenge is to look hard at the fundamental questions facing government across our state: What level of government should be providing what type of service? If we were designing and building a government from scratch, what would it look like?

Can we accept a model where the paramount duty of the state is to fund, support and organize public education? The implications would be profoundly important to our needs for other services. The questions and answers would roar through our political dialogue in every community. Rural areas would be especially impacted since the risk is very real that they would see a substantial reduction in government services from state government. Many from rural areas often seek to reduce the size of state government, but I think when the question surfaces in a specific or tangible way their voices may not be so loud.

And yet we do need to ask, do local communities want anything from Olympia other than money when it comes to schools or is ‘local control’ a mantra that we can’t see beyond?

Should counties be a stronger lead on public health with more coordination from Olympia but a less hands-on operational role from the state?

Should multi county regions have more taxing authority for transit solutions?

Should the state get out of some lines of business and, if so, will we provide the support for local governments to do it more effectively and efficiently?

Would local governments use money from levies for schools for other vital human services (assuming the state increased its funding for the paramount duty of education) or would we see a tiered, inequitable system across our state in health care, housing, economic development, environmental services and more?

The issues aren’t just about the state’s projected $2.8 billion deficit, they are structural and integral to our future for years to come. There was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when state governments were the laboratories for innovation and entrepreneurial ideas. I don’t see that happening as much today as state’s struggle to maintain basic functions. But we need to reclaim that title and sense of courage about big innovation.

It is not too late, on a larger level, to seize the opportunity of this crisis.

Many spent this past week railing against a change in I-960. They say their strategy is to reduce the size, scope and role of state government. Yet their lack of any meaningful proposals, suggestions or contributions on a policy level suggests otherwise. Their lack of actual policies, proposals, ideas or suggestions about genuine, meaningful government systems reform is a deafening silence. It is not as easy as making a speech.

We should begin a structured one or two year initiative to ask these larger structural and systematic questions. We should organize community meetings across our state for a bold dialogue about how to build a 21st Century government in Washington.

The next governor will have no option to avoid facing this fundamental issue head on. It makes me wish the top two prospects on both sides of the political aisle had a broader, more diverse background of experience between both the pubic and private sectors. Their careers have been defined by government. That either opens the door to a “Nixon goes to China” opportunity or it sets the stage for the status quo. The history of our state is to elect governors and even legislators who most frequently come from careers in government.

We need to embrace Thomas Jefferson’s ideal of a healthy, frequent, interactive relationship between the public and private sectors. We have a citizen legislature for a reason but as the economy struggles the institutional infrastructure of the status quo freezes our willingness to be bold. And yet, of course, it is from crisis comes opportunity.

Today the private sector is, as a general rule, asking and addressing these very tough questions because there is no other choice. Markets are shifting, economies are changing, customers are making different choices. That doesn’t mean the private sector is doing it perfectly or safely or well, but it has embarked on the difficult journey. The challenges are structural, systematic and historic. Families and businesses don’t have an option but to adapt and change.

Neither does government. We can embark on this journey with more courageous honesty if we choose.

Your partner in service,

Reuven.