By PAUL WYMAN
Tribune guest columnist
October 09, 2007 11:17 pm
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Having been through my first budgeting session as an elected official has me feeling like there is light at the end of the tunnel. However, the tunnel is a long one and it will take a serious amount of maneuvering to get to the end. What is the end of the tunnel? Well, it is my hope that it is smaller government and lower property taxes. Why a long tunnel?
Well, it will require changing the way things have always been done. There can no longer be sacred cows in government. It is my personal opinion, as long as these sacred cows are lying on the backs of homeowners, we should start to talk about them. It was once said that in some countries cows are sacred and in some countries cows are eaten. Guess where we live? I will touch on two today and more in the future.
Before I tackle the first subject, I want to be on the record as saying that the vast majority of our county employees are good, hard-working folks. In fact, there are many things your county government does very well. If we were to compare ourselves to our peer counties, you would see that Howard County is often a leader. That should be commended. However, when we end up in a property tax crisis, people often overlook the successes and start to focus on areas for improvement. I think it is fair to say we can all agree that no matter how good we are, we can certainly look to improve even more. The fact of the matter is government from an employment standpoint has significantly grown over the years. In the county, we have over 500 employees, part time and full time. It is my opinion, from having worked in both private and public sectors, statistically any organization this size can become smaller by 10-25 people. That would be up to $1.5 million directly to the bottom line in salaries and benefits.
I know that some will make my statement out to be anti-employee. But stop and please really listen to what I am saying. I am saying it is time to address the size of government. The size of government is a sacred cow because no matter who you might ask, all the jobs are needed, bar none.
I know from experience that any organization this size can trim down. Citizens all across our community are feeling the pinch at their places of employment. They are being asked to do more with less. Government should be no different. As in any organization, if we said we could hire 50 more people, we would find work for them. That does not mean they are needed. Another part of the government growth problem is unfunded, mandated positions from the state. Positions the state says we must have, but won’t provide funds for them. They expect local taxpayers to pick up the bill, even though we don’t get a say in whether or not we agree if we need the position.
My solution to fix this problem is not to walk in and start firing people. What I did propose is at our budget hearing was a hiring freeze. As some of these positions become vacated, we simply do not replace them. There are some positions that we will have to rehire, because they really are mission critical. So the hiring freeze would require a rejustification of each job that comes available. If the job can be justified, we can rehire. If it can’t, then we don’t. Isn’t that fair? I am talking about bringing a level of accountability to the hiring and firing process that the taxpayers can have faith in. Let’s always be in a position to say to the taxpayers, we really have looked at this position and we all agree it is necessary for us to spend your tax dollars on. After all, our local corporations and small businesses have to do this all the time. We have people all across our community that have been affected by downsizing, hiring freezes or adjustments to their jobs. Why should government get a free pass on this reality of the workplace? Why should the taxpayers not receive the same benefit in an effort to show that every dollar is being spent wisely? The second step in my idea is a retirement incentive. Let’s look at a package that we could offer folks close to retirement. This is another one of those win-win scenarios. It would get us an immediate reduction in employees and start putting money to the bottom line, therefore reducing budget pressures and then hopefully reducing the need for more tax increases to run government.
Another sacred cow is benefits. Insurance costs are skyrocketing and again, like many folks in our community who are having benefits cut or taken away completely, we must have courage to have an honest discussion about this difficult subject. OK, let me stop again and say, I am not proposing discontinuing health care for government employees. What I am suggesting is that we start to look at creative ways to deal with the situation. One thought is a reward program for employees that keep their usage down, or perhaps pay employees to get on their spouses’ plan at their spouses’ employer. For example, it if cost us $11,000 per employee to provide health insurance, why don’t we offer to pay an employee $3,000 a year to leave our plan and join their spouse’s. Or whatever the number is. It would certainly be less than the cost of the benefit itself. If 20 percent of the employees did this, we could put as much as $750,000 to the bottom line. Guest what, everyone still has health insurance, and we just brought costs down. Here is the reality: We better start talking about it now and not ignore the issue. If we don’t work together with the employees on this issue, the day will come when there will be no choice but to cut the benefit. A day neither I nor anyone else would be interested in. Let’s get creative now and solve the dilemma together.
I was not successful in getting the hiring freeze through on my first go around, but I will continue along those lines until we can be in a position to give taxpayers a good answer for each position. The sacred cows and the 800-pound elephants often get ignored in the room. Well, just like the old adage goes on how to eat an elephant – one bite at a time – we must start serving up the sacred cow. So, let’s get out the steak sauce and fire up the grill.
Paul Wyman is a Howard County councilman and proprietor
of The Wyman Group.
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Paul Wyman
Tribune guest columnist