Welcome the new Maine | A national public sector consultant suggests Maine may need a governmental overhaul

"Charting the course" is written by GrowSmart Maine, a Yarmouth nonprofit that works to build consensus and realize solutions for a better Maine. This issue's column is written by Christian McNeil, GrowSmart's communications director.â&Copy;
GrowSmart Maine recently spent two days touring the state with David Osborne, an expert on innovation in public policy and the bestselling author of the 1992 book Reinventing Government. As senior partner at the Public Strategies Group, a public sector consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn., Osborne works with governments of all sizes — from local to federal — to help them become more entrepreneurial and cost-effective. It’s a service we believe Maine can use.â&Copy;
Making Maine’s government less expensive is something GrowSmart has been advocating for since we worked with the Brookings Institution to produce “Charting Maine’s Future” in 2006. That report estimated Maine could save as much as $100 million a year by streamlining layers of government administration.â&Copy;
While efforts to consolidate school districts and corrections facilities have progressed, this past winter’s $200 million budget shortfall made it clear our state needs a more comprehensive strategy.â&Copy;
In May, GrowSmart introduced Osborne to regional chambers of commerce in Portland, Bangor and the midcoast to gauge their interest in launching a new study on how Maine can strategize to save money and improve performance in all of its governments. Even at this early stage, we’ve learned a lot.â&Copy;
Streamlining Maineâ&Copy;
Thanks to ballooning health care expenses, Osborne predicts Maine will experience budget shortfalls like the one we just endured for at least eight of the next 10 years. He described the situation as a “permanent fiscal crisis,” though he pointed out that there is a silver lining. A fiscal crisis forces us to rethink our old bureaucratic model of government and replace it with something more entrepreneurial, more cost-effective, and ultimately more helpful to the people of Maine. â&Copy;
Osborne’s Public Strategies Group recently helped the state of Iowa, where revenues had declined for five consecutive years, by introducing new incentives and management structures to allow government workers to provide better services for less money.â&Copy;
Iowa is similar to Maine in many ways: It’s mostly rural. It has an economy highly dependent on natural resources. It also has an aging workforce and rapidly rising health care costs. â&Copy;
Osborne and the Public Strategies Group offered Iowa lawmakers a menu of cost-cutting options. In one large initiative, PSG worked with the governor and Legislature to create a framework for state-level “charter agencies.” Like charter schools, these agencies are allowed to operate outside of some of the usual rules of bureaucracy — they can make their own personnel or purchasing decisions, for instance — if, in exchange, they agree to meet measurable benchmarks in performance and contribute toward a collective $15 million in annual budget savings. â&Copy;
In the 2004 and 2005 fiscal years, Iowa’s six charter agencies beat their goals by saving a total of more than $20 million annually. At the same time, freedom from bureaucratic restrictions gave agency employees more flexibility to exceed their performance standards. For instance, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources reduced the average amount of time it took to issue one of its permits from 62 days to six working days — a 90% improvement — and the Department of Human Services added 53,000 eligible Iowans to its food assistance program. â&Copy;
21st century governingâ&Copy;
The charter agencies have since won national awards for innovative government, but these initiatives were politically unpopular at first. Will something like this fly here? When we met with chambers of commerce and editorial boards, plenty of people were skeptical that Maine’s Legislature and labor unions would ever make similar sacrifices to serve the greater good. â&Copy;
But Osborne reminded those skeptics of the alternative: If legislators are forced to fill growing budget gaps year after year, then these kinds of organizational reforms will begin to seem relatively painless and simple. In Iowa, across-the-board budget cuts and massive layoffs were the only alternative to PSG’s recommendations, so legislators and employee unions readily accepted most of the recommended changes. â&Copy;
GrowSmart Maine’s proposed “Governing Maine in the 21st Century” project would retain Osborne to study specific strategies to reinvent Maine’s public sector so that it can provide better services at lower costs. As we did with our 2006 Brookings report, we hope to create a statewide conversation in order to find common ground, then implement a long-term plan of action. â&Copy;
Mainers have a reputation for resisting change, but when we consider the alternatives — political rancor and meat-cleaver budget cuts — we think our state could use some fresh ideas.â&Copy;
Christian McNeil can be reached at christian@growsmartmaine.org.
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