Can Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann do what so many government leaders have touted but failed to accomplish and actually reorganize state government? He has his Mississippi Senate looking to restructure state government and run it more like a business.
A little history. In 1932 the Institute for Government Research of the Brookings Institution studied Mississippi government. Its Report on a Survey of the Organization and Administration of State and County Government in Mississippi recommended a maximum of 12 agencies. A study by Highsaw and Mullican, The Growth of State Administration in Mississippi, suggested 17 agencies in 1950. A group of CEOs, said 32 agencies in 1971. These thoughtful recommendations got nowhere with the Mississippi Legislature which wields the power over agency creation and dissolution. In 1817 the state started with eight administrative agencies, by 1932 there were 80 and by 1950 just over 100, and in 2023 over 140. Hoseman says we have over 200 today. As I have written time and again, our state government more resembles kudzu – the “vine that ate the South” – than an efficient organism. A little bit of kudzu can grow up to a lot before you know it. Pruning has little impact. Kill a section and it reappears. For successful long-term control of kudzu, experts say, it is necessary to kill or remove the kudzu root crown and all rooting runners. Notably, every government program in Mississippi has its own “root crown” – a powerful legislator, official, or interest group – with “rooting runners” – alumni, farmers, nurses, road builders, business leaders, parents and teachers, and so on. Rooting beneficiaries everywhere!
Back to the present. The first of an expected array of government efficiency bills passed the Senate unanimously. The bill, written by Senate Governor Structure Committee Chairman Tyler McCaughn, would eliminate 22 “obsolete” commissions and boards. Okay, just a baby step, but at least a first step. However, that expected array of bills has not appeared. Sen. McCaughn’s committee late last year requested state agency leaders to provide input on how to make their operations more efficient and less wasteful. But the only relevant efficiency bill still alive in his committee is SB 2017 which would establish a task force to study streamlining and eliminating duplication among five agencies – Medicaid, health, mental health, child protection, and human services. Interestingly, one bill that is still moving forward and championed by Hosemann, would add another agency. "We need a Department of Tourism that focuses on tourism,” he said. SB 2016, which passed the Senate 47 to 3, would remove tourism from the Mississippi Development Authority and create a stand-alone Department of Tourism. Kudzu is hard to kill. "Sometimes mere words are not enough” – Proverbs 29:19. Crawford is an author and syndicated columnist from Jackson.
2 comments:
We do not want to run government like a for profit business. The structural models are entirely different for good reason.
Government is supposed to be " by the people and for the people"!
What we'll end up with is rich politicians and the rest of us will their "employees"!
Layoffs and firings come with having employees.
The complainers are always the first to be downsized or fired.
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