Markman's Musings: The governor's continued buffoonery

10/16/07 - What's the difference between Michael Jackson and Gov. Donald Carcieri?Carcieri screws little kids with a pen.

He also screws big kids with his sweeping eliminations and benefit reductions, but it's the little-kid-screwing that focuses the issue and gets people really riled up.

In a Providence Journal story, Thomas Dwyer, a former top official in the Department of Children, Youth and Families, said, "I can no longer participate in the choices being made, which fail to make our most needy and vulnerable children a top priority."

I would suggest that the R.I. General Assembly no longer participate in such choices either. Weeks ago it was announced that financial aid for poor families supporting children would be cut. Carcieri also supports President Bush's veto of expanded State Children's Health Insurance Programs. So when the governor says that it is absurd to claim he puts children at risk, it depends on your definition of risk. A lack of health insurance and dismal support for DCYF is not necessarily putting children at risk, it's just screwing them.

Now for the big kids. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Rhode Island has 164 state workers per 10,000 residents. That is the smallest amount in New England and 40th in the country. Somehow the governor pins nearly all of our budget woes on this work force. A work force that is the base of a pyramid atop which sits the governor himself.

Somehow, by squeezing out 1,000 union members at the base of the pyramid and taking away $50 million in benefits from the rest, the governor believes the pyramid will not falter. While there may be a certain amount of inefficiency prevalent in our state workforce, it takes a transparent approach that looks ahead, beyond elections and retirement, to solve a complex problem.

In my short experience with just a single part of the state work force, I've noticed glaring inefficiency. It exists and will always exist, to some extent, as long as we're human. There is small inefficiency, like when someone on the state payroll clocks in before changing his or her shoes or checking his or her voicemail. And there is large inefficiency, like "inappropriate billings" and rampant nepotism at the Department of Transportation.

The DOT has been such a hotbed for inefficiency and questionable ethics during the years in Rhode Island that I'm actually not surprised at all that Carcieri has stayed away from looking at it as an angle on the budget problem. I'm not surprised because the R.I. DOT has spread incredible amounts of money over a large number of people for decades. Instead, the governor has focused his vague efforts on the newest state employees with the lowest salaries. That's a hell of a way to trim payroll and increase productivity.

A surer but more expensive way to trim state payrolls is to set up a program to really look at where inefficiency can be reduced. An on-site work-performance survey at the larger state institutions would work better than a generalized slash that could hurt the state's economy for years.

One way for the state to make up for some of the overhead of state unions is to ask for the money back. Not in benefit or salary reductions, not even with wholesale employee cuts, but simply by asking. The 2007 Rhode Island State Employees Charitable Appeal was sent out last week from the URI President's Office. In it, SECA coordinator Andrea M. Hopkins appeals to her colleagues to help with issues like hunger, childcare, strengthening families and increasing elderly independence.

It's a great big circle where the workers are paid, and are scolded for earning a living, even though some struggle to support their families, to provide their children with after-school care. Then they are urged to contribute - if only $1 per week or $2 per pay period - to the well-being of various agencies in Rhode Island. Then these workers grow old and try to live independently, wondering what ever happened to that bi-weekly contribution. Because certainly, if they could have donated a substantial sum to the Philanthropy Account, these workers wouldn't wonder where their money went.

The R.I. General Assembly should not be spared in a hard look at the government's deficit solutions. But the governor continues to flail his political arms, attracting most of the attention and hurting the economic future of the state. Not only did he propose to take a large number of jobs from less-experienced state workers, Gov. Carcieri urged the DCYF to boost service while significantly reducing its budget. His 2008 fiscal plan includes a reduction in financial support for child care programs and providers, which would mean that Rhode Island's childcare capacity would be lessened by approximately 4,000 children.

So what then is the governor's plan for the next few weeks? Perhaps he plans to sit down with labor and with his legislators and really look at union contracts, the work force itself, and the inefficiencies of DOT contracting. Maybe he'll do that and look around at some other places and craft a budget with an eye on today's problems and on the future economic viability of Rhode Island.

Or perhaps the governor will mount a campaign for justice. Or a campaign to improve his public image, while avoiding scrutiny. Well yes, more likely the latter. Gov. Carcieri's immediate plan, aside from leaving his plan vague and threatening, is to implement such remarkable political strategies as spin and thwarting attacks from his opponents.

I'm sure, with all his political acumen, I'll be convinced within a month that the governor is not actually screwing little kids with that pen of his. Really he is strengthening the independence of children in the anticipation of an under-funded retirement.