Article 13. A Four Year State Wide Reform Plan

The Four Year State Wide Reform Plan 
This is but an example of what I envision as a State Wide Government Reform Plan. This approach goes far beyond just balancing the state’s budget but gets at the heart of bringing the state out of the 19th century and into the 21st century. It challenges the thinking of government employees through the implementation of Lean Teams to get the highest efficiency possible using my General Reform Model. The approach should be applied at all levels of state, county and city governments. The goal of the plan is to first achieve a balanced state budget and then move forward to implement the reforms that reduce Property Taxes and State Income Taxes and maintain the level of services that most residents want.

Getting a balanced budget in the first year of the plan is the number one priority. This involves hitting the ground running at the start of the a new administration with the formation of a Government Reform Committee and securing authorization from the legislature to give it the broad powers needed to implement major reforms. I recommend that prospective members of the committee be asked to submit recommendations for government reforms. This insures that members become contributors to an innovative team. I also recommend that members include those that are familiar with the problems of government such as state auditors as a kind of counter balance to keep reform ideas relevant.

The cutting back and the elimination of redundant programs is a necessary first step to obtaining a balanced budget. With that accomplishment we can begin the implementation of Phase 1. of the General Reform Model. Iowa and Minnesota have already implemented Phase 1. Lean Teams. About six months later after the implementation of lean Teams in the appropriate areas of state government Phase 2. can begin. Work Measurement is done on the Lean Teams’ data followed by determining the correct staffing and ending with a bottoms-up budget.

This should be followed by the implementation of my Streamlining of Boards and Commissions Model. The Model reduces the number of Boards and Commissions and introduces better management practices. By August Phase 3. Should have begun with the Lean Teams Replacing the Bureaucratic organization followed by a significant reduction in government employees. This can come about without a great deal of difficulty because state budget planners will know precisely where the government is overstaffed resulting a balanced budget.

While all this is going on in March a Lean Team for the Consolidation Model should be implemented. This team has the responsibility for planning and implementing the consolidation of government Agencies and State Services. The planning and implementation of the state government consolidation efforts including work measurement should be completed by August with its recommendations for staff reductions. This will conclude the State Government reforms within the first year.

The fourth and final reform model: The State Data Center Reform Model (also a part of the state’s Consolidation of Services Model) is the last to be implemented after all consolidations have taken place. This is the most expensive reform model to be implemented and will take some time, several years. This is an important state implementation since all of the state’s cities, counties and state government IT systems are obsolete the new Data Center could eventually become the cloud computing center for the entire state saving $millions.

Another significant recommendation is for the State to go to a Four Day Work Week.

Local Government and County Consolidation 
How to approach the consolidation of Ohio’s counties. Since this reform is likely to take several years I recommend that Lean Team be formed early to determine how to implement this consolidation. The approach to this problem can be done in many ways but I are my ideas for doing this.


There are several reasons why this is a good idea among them are:
A. A significant cost savings in elimination of duplicate government services.
B. Services to the elderly can be provided more economically and effectively.
C. Combining nearby counties and or towns increases population and can attract business and industry leading to more jobs.

I recommend approaching the problem by looking at how the State Department of Transportation is organized into Districts. These Districts are organized to provide the best service for the state’s roads. Similar Districts should be reviewed for providing better health services. This gives you a starting model for reform. These new Districts will replace the current counties reducing their number to around 30 to 35 instead of the 88 counties you now have. You could call them Health Service Districts for time being. Each District should contain two to three counties with the District Offices residing in the most prominent town with a hospital. Each District should have at least one Walk-in Clinic for public health service and can be either private or public managed.

To ease the transition from counties to districts I would ignore the combining of local county and city governments until the health district concept is implemented and fully accepted. This may take a couple of years.

For the County Consolidation Reform I recommend a pilot district be selected and reformed first. This can be used as a Model for all county- district consolidations. The real benefit is that Lean Teams can study all the processes being done within the pilot district. Nearly all the data collected in the formation of the pilot district can be duplicated and used in all the other district consolidations for staffing and budgeting. I estimate that the entire State of Ohio could have its 88 counties consolidated to 30 to 35 districts by the end of the third Year.

 I also recommend Municipal Districts where an entire major city and most of its suburbs become a complete district within itself and not split between districts. Some of the district’s services such as street and road maintenance, gas, power, sewers and water should be district wide. But other services are clearly of local concern planning and zoning, fire and police protection. 

I further recommend that all formerly county road maintenance crews be consolidated with the State Department of Transportation in each District which will become responsible for all road maintenance. The number of Ohio DOT offices may increase by having an office in each District but these are smaller offices which can provide better service to the public. Each office would provide automotive and driver’s licenses to the public. In Virginia these same offices also sell fishing licenses.

Comments by the Author 
This is just one way of approaching a four year reform plan with still many details to be developed. The key to consolidation is in using Lean Teams to determine the best way to do the new processes and in using Work Measurement to determine the correct staffing and budget. This approach is a powerful decision making tool for selecting the best alternative. Most consolidation failures occur because organizations are thrown together without knowing where staffing can be cut resulting in endless bickering and a complete waste of effort.

A final recommendation which should be included is in election reform where the cost of an election can be reduced by as much as 50% simply by reducing the number of polling stations and in some cases increasing the number of days the polls are open. See “Election Reform Yields Savings for State & Local governments”.

Improving Statewide Productivity by Sharing Lean Training

One of the biggest hurtles to overcome when implementing efficiency improvements in government is “What To Do With Redundant Employees”. Both legislators and government bureaucratic agencies bury their heads in the sand when it comes to this question. Nearly all fear that laying off any private or state employees will hurt the state’s economy. This is a result of a failure to grasp the big picture.

I advocate an all out effort to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the entire state both government and private businesses. The result is a more stabilized state economy. At the same time an all out effort should be made to attract new businesses offering incentives such as reduced taxes and assistance in training a new workforce through vocational training. Increasing the efficiency and competitiveness in the private sector results in increased sales and increased state revenues. You can also decrease the need for revenues in the public sector by improving government efficiency. But you must find new markets to employ redundant private and public employees. The sooner that this can be done the sooner the state’s economy can get back on its feet.

Solving The Problem of improving employment
The thrust of this article is to move employees from private or public areas that are over expanded to new private job areas that can be expanded. The best way to do this is to find products that can be produced within a state and exported to other states and countries. It is difficult if not impossible for a state to get back on its feet within a reasonable time without tapping into some source of revenue from outside the state. Many states rely on tourism for revenue, granted this can bring in revenue from outside the state, but this kind of economy can vaporize over night. The answer is in attracting new solid manufacturing jobs to the state in industries that export their products. The best example of this is the Chinese economy where the only alternative was to export its products by being competitive in world markets. But the Chinese economy survived the latest down turn by selling its products to its own population an alternative that is limited in our current economy.

Nearly all state and local governments and up to 90% of all US industry use the bureaucratic form of organization. This form of organization has inherent inefficiencies embedded within it. Increased efficiency can be obtained by changing from the bureaucratic form to a Team Management form of organization. I explain how this can be done as a part of my explanation of my General Reform Model. 

Most US business leaders are completely unaware of the above bureaucratic inefficiencies and some concentrate their management in only two areas the cost of raw materials and the cost of labor. When the cost of raw materials or supplies cannot be controlled the company may seek cheap labor from abroad by moving off shore completely ignoring the possibility of operating more efficiently. 

The state government should concentrate on training Lean Teams and implementing them throughout the state and local governments. Government organizations across the state will require reduced revenues. Once trained in Lean those government employees found to be redundant can be marketed by the governor as change agents for making private industry more efficient thus finding employment for them. The Idea is keep moving employees from bubble areas where they are not needed to new markets where they are needed making both industry and government efficient.