64 Comments - Ralph - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 9:45 am: A thorough review of personal services contracts and a suspension of payment to those for which no or inadequate work was being performed would save the state millions. - MattVarble - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 9:59 am: Reduce the extravagent security detail of the governor. Sell the governor’s mansion and have a smaller residence. Get rid of the IDHR..The EEOC itself is sufficient. Get rid of state owned vehicles and look into leasing options instead. Cut back the State Police force. Get rid of the Lt. Governor’s office, as there is no need for one. - Vanilla World - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 10:31 am: Stop supporting two state capitols. We pay too much to keep Chicago offices open and too much in salaries to keep workers in Chicago. We pay too much to send support staff from Springfield to Chicago to keep the Chicago offices operating. The cost savings by moving Illinois government back to the official state capitol is the right thing to do constitutionally, and fiscally. Today’s technologies allow for the opportunity to move to cheaper locations for savings. If we kept government where it has been mandated to reside, the savings would be incredible. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 10:33 am: How about we do away with the Lt. Gov. Office. Then we merge the Comptroller and the Treasurers Offices. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 10:43 am: Follow the advice of former Corrections Chief Don Snyder and the lead of other states and remove non-violent drug offenders from the prison population and place them in community-based treatment, monitoring and parole. Roughly 1/4 of our 43,000 prison population are first-time, non-violent drug offenders. If our prisons are overcrowded by an estimated 11,000, can’t we agree on both sides that we can’t afford to lock these guys up, especially when there are less expensive and more effective alternatives? As Charlie Wheeler reports from the Criminal Justice Information Authority, spending in the Dept. of Corrections has grown three times faster than the rest of the state budget, more than 15-fold in the last quarter century, to a current $1.3 billion. Every honest policy maker admits privately that we’re doing it not to make us safer, but to sustain the economies of regions of the state. Those communities would be much better off if those dollars were spent bringing high speed internet to their communities, funding their schools, financing agribusiness projects and sending their kids to college to be doctors. At $20K an inmate, paroling 11,000 non-violent drug offenders would save $220 million. We could boost the number of parole officers, increase funding for social service programs, and eliminate the six-month waiting list for drug treatment (10,000 people standing in line right now) and still easily have probably $100 million in savings left. The additional savings for local governments, who are currently overrun with the costs of incarcerating meth addicts in jails because there are no community treatment alternatives, would be mind-boggling. Oh, and since the prisons are already understaffed due to the overcrowding, not one prison guard loses his job under this plan. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 11:15 am: Most of these suggestions involve people losing their jobs and getting their pensions diluted…that is not good. What will happen to them? I like Yellow Dog’s idea because it saves jobs. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 11:23 am: Yellow Dog: What do we do with the mothballed facility at Thomson and and the partially built facilites at Hopkins Park and in Southern Illinois? I agree with what you are saying, but would go one step further in that the old obsolete buildings should be shucked and the new ones utilitzed. Still no jobs lost. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 11:42 am: How about privatizing state parks? Before anyone jumps all over this, think about it. If done properly, services would improve, state DNR costs would be cut dramatically, and the state would retain enough control (still own the land etc.) to prevent environmental abuses. Private operators or local communities could bid on the operations contracts, award the vendor contracts so that the costs associated with mowing lawns, patrols, garbage collection could be offset if they can’t be absorbed by either the private manager or, if local governments got involved, instead of the state. The state could also assist with capital projects through bonding authority, perhaps splitting debt service costs with the operators or some other arrangement. Yes, the obvious way this makes financial sense is to let the operator charge admission fees, but if the local units of gov were the operators instead of the state, they could exempt their residents or offer reduced resident’s rates. Employees will always be the most expensive government obligation. Reducing headcount is the only way to seriously save money. But this isn’t all about saving money, since this governor has already made many of these cuts. It is about improving the quality of the state parks, and developing their real value as tourist attractions while managing the health of these ecosystems. Let’s face it, the state isn’t up the task. It’s time we look for other ways to get this done, and here’s an example where downstate sportsmen and upstate environmentalists can work together. - Tom DeLay's Mom - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 11:50 am: Combine IEPA, DNR and PCB into one mega-agency - that would eliminate 4 or 5 layers of well-paid “middle-management” bureaucrat positions, as well as facilities costs. Combine the State Treasurer and Comptroller’s offices. Maximize the dollar-for-dollar federal match by fully leveraging state Medicaid/Medicare dollars - rather than continuing to cut those funds for “cosmetic” budget cuts that look good in press releases. Initiate a comprehensive, INDEPENDENT, professional audit of all state contracts administered by CMS - evaluate every contract and vendor based on cost-savings and value-added - not clout. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 12:08 pm: Yellow Dog, The 20K per certainly includes personnel costs. Thus, I don’t think you could generate the savings you project without paring back staff. I support your plan. You just need to realize what it entails. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 12:20 pm: Eliminate CMS, and de-centralize. Most agencies already have their own IT, personnel, and legal staffs that do the majority of the work. Agencies should recover the Communications, legal, and internal audit functions taken away in the last 2 years. CMS essentially serves as a roadblock to getting things done. They provide no service, and no real legal protection. They are a monumental waste of state resources. If you eliminated CMS, and apportioned 1/2 of their current budget and resources out to the agencies to handle their own support, you would probably save around $1.5 billion per year AND allow the government to run more effectively. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 12:26 pm: If we’re going to bail out the CTA and send letters to Bush about Amtrak funding, how about making all the frequent Chicago to Springfield travelers take the train. And it would be interesting to see how much money the state spends on parking spaces for Chicago employees. Employees should pay for their spaces or take the L. - ArchPundit - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 12:40 pm: Combining DNR and EPA is a bad idea–and we see it in action in different states. Combining the three headed regulatory agency makes a lot of sense, but the essential mission of DNR and EPA is different. One should be about protecting and preserving natural resources, while the other is a regulatory agency of businesses. Their missions are significantly different enough that combining them tends to result in less preservation and less enforcement. In terms of privatizing parks–the essential problem with the national park system is that the vendors have too much influence in Congress-the set-up as described recreates the same problem because a small minority in terms of numbers ends up with a significant stake in deciding how they are run and decisions are made on profit base instead on a basis of preservation. The state can run them, it just has to choose to do it. Ralph’s idea is a personal favorite of mine. - latinv - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 12:43 pm: The average cost of the 5 operational level 1 prisons(Thomson being the 6th) to run is 35K per year. Tamms throws it off from the 20-22K figure often used. Each of the other 4, excluding Tamms averages 900-1200 extra prisoners per day. Take the extra prisoners move them to and open Thomson; nobody loses a job, state saves 32-38 million due to thomsons average expected cost of 21K, per prisoner per year. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 1:36 pm: Oh, where to begin!?!?! My hubby and I have worked in state government for many years. Over the past two governors, we saw really draconian cuts in personnel and demands for increased services on ever-shrinking budgets. And yet, more or less, we pulled it off. Front-line State workers don’t get enough credit for the sacrifices they bore, for the efficiencies and creative solutions they came up with to do their jobs with less. Talk about Pharoh asking us to make bricks without straw! I don’t know ANY “lazy” state workers not in management… we’re dedicated public servants that believe in what we’re doing to serve our citizens. But then the new administration came in. We were used to austerity, to hiring freezes, and thought maybe, with all the promises he’s made, Blago will be giving us a FEW more people to do our jobs with, finally, our voices might be heard… but no. They came thru and knocked off a bunch of non partisan long term expert employees and used the generated head count spaces to hire additional hack “managers” that have nothing much to manage, and don’t know how to do their (high paying) jobs. They are burning thru our budget money on questionable projects that are all about superficial results and making the Governor look good in the short term. Actual work for our clients means nothing to them. Meanwhile, the institutional memory, all the skills of how the work gets done, built up over years, are gone, or worse, ignored by all these politically connected outside ‘”consultants” they’ve brought in. Those guys take the cake: they charge big money to tell our bosses the same things we’ve told them for years, then leave us to pick up the pieces, with less money than before. Hm, more specific suggestions? CMS needs big reform. It does make sense to have one agency consolidate a lot of the day to day administration of agencies, there are economies of scale you get this way… but Blago has politicized it on a scale that dwarfs what previous governors did to the agriculture and ENR departments. Where CMS blows chunks the worst is procurement, it’s pretty much a huge joke. The place is run as if their mandate is to PREVENT any purchases, rather than make the best deals for the taxpayers money. The real estate deals are very shady, commodities are ridiculously politicized. They make you go thru hoops of fire to specify the items you need, then they sit on the paperwork for months without a word, then without notice, arbitrarily change your carefully researched specs to favor some connected vendor, whether it works or not. You tell them about all the troubles a certain vendor has given you, they still award him the contract. Stuff comes in late, out of date, or incomplete. And they totally ignore the “buy Illinois products” concept, preferring to outsource out of state to connected campaign contributors. It makes my blood boil as a tax payer. About the prisons, I have talked to lots of law officers, criminal justice experts and corrections people over the years, and they all agreed on two truths: building prisons is a ridiculous and wrong way to create economic stimulus, and the petty first time drug offenders have swamped the system past overload, and it has solved nothing. It only makes candidates for office look “tough on crime” long enough to get elected. They need to instead bump up the Parole Officers and treatment programs to workable numbers, get these people some education and job skills so they don’t immediately reoffend. You can generate more and better jobs in Illinois supporting and treating these first timers than warehousing them with hardened criminals. Five parole officers can take on a load once faced by a single prison guard. The guard union has to get it’s moral authority back by not protecting guards who smuggle drugs and contraband into prison. DOC needs better pay, screening and standards to keep undercover gang bangers from getting hired on as guards. Finally, I blame Edgar’s shameful tactics against Netch, when she proposed the tax swap that might actually straighten our fiscal problems out. He did such a good job spreading FUD about the plan, when he came into office and tried to do the SAME PLAN, it could get no traction with the voters because he’d so effectively poisoned the well. Blago’s insane “no taxes” pledge has ruined any chance this had. The tax pledge is a ruse: he’s just passed on the burden for raising fees to municipalities and counties and schools and every other public institution you can name. The short-sightedness and solipsism of this administration is on a level unprecedented in state history. Can I take back my vote? - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 2:17 pm: Whew, just read the last post - good one. How about cutting the weekly travel for all the state employees who live in Chicago, but travel to Springfield on a weekly basis -HUGE waste of money. I have personal knowledge of employees at the Department of Public Health who do this. Blago replaced the previous director and assistant director with NINE new employees who live in Chicago. That, of course, is also a waste. They have two offices (one in Chicago and one in Springfield) all with cool new office furniture. They work in Chicago on Monday, fly to Springfield on Tuesday morning, stay at the Hilton Tuesday and Wednesday night, and fly back to Chicago on Thursday morning. They work in their Chicago office on Friday. So let’s total that up. Round trip plane tickets, two nights hotel stay at the Hilton, and per diem each week; multiply that by nine and you have your weekly travel total - and that is only one agency! I don’t know about the others, but I am sure there are alot of employees making these weekly trips. Would you take a job if it was offered to you in Chicago and your employer allowed you to live in Springfield, paid your weekly plane trips, per diem, gave you two offices, and set you up in the Chicago Hilton every week? Where do I sign up? Ending this practice would be a good start in saving money for the state. Move to Springfield if you accept a job here. I don’t think that is a lot to ask, is it????? - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 2:18 pm: Any serious discussion of how to curb state spending has to include Medicaid reform. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 2:54 pm: How about making every state employee - from management down to the frontline - justify their position and salary. For every hard-working employee, there’s one or more messing around on taxpayer time with not enough to do. This will never happen politically, but it’s the true definition of cutting waste and inefficiency. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 2:54 pm: Wow..and I thought Human Services had the monopoly on all the travel nonsense with administrators living in Chicago and flying down to the Capitol every week. These folks blew through the annual travel budget in six months. 90% of the new hugely bloated Human Services Executive Staff lives in Chicago and flys to the Capitol every week. I’d add that the Governor should at least hire qualified people for top end positions. Our Chief of Staff at DHS only had a high school education until a few months ago when she finally got her AA degree. What was the Governor thinking when he put unqualified people in charge of a massive agency. - Tom Joad - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 3:06 pm: Yellow Dog’s new math has me wondering: How do you parole 11,000 first time drug offenders, keep the same number of guards, increase the funding for local treatment centers and save $100 million. The large majority of the cost of prisons is in salary for guards, not food or clothing.The reduction in administration would not be much. So how do you save money if you have the same number of personnel? - Tessa - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 3:44 pm: I’ll start with administrative reforms - something similar to the making all employees justify their positions, but I won’t go that far, knowing the place I work at and the similar ones. Take a good look at all the management positions, PSAs, SPSAs, their staff, who work out of Springfield. Are they qualified and do they do anything? Most probably could be done away with and no one would notice. It’d be that many less people for us to have to justify every last moment of our day to. Wasteful spending at CMS. They certainly hold on to things which hurts the people who need them, not just staff. An independent audit would be nice. Financially, the gov needs to give up on his “no taxes” mantra, since he’s already broken that by leaning on businesses and other fees. Look at the tax swap - I’d rather pay less for property taxes and have a tax base more like other states. And it would help statewide, especially in the school system, where our next generation needs it. Wasteful state spending, where do you start? Not where I’m at. It’d be great to lease vehicles, but we just get everyone elses hand-me-downs, and I’m sure no money would be saved. They are cutting our overtime now so that we’re working again at dangerously low levels, and things we’re supposed to do aren’t getting down - to the detriment of those we serve. Oh, I just went all ethical there. Sorry. Why not use the prisons that are empty and costing us MILLIONS each year just to flush toilets, etc.? Do some real drug treatment for those first time offenders. I know people who want and need to get into Sheridan who can’t. Put those who are first timers in the transition centers and give them treatment - less staff needed, more intensive therapy. We could work with community providers on funding. I just keep going back to getting rid of all the mid-management people who don’t really do anything. The figureheads that got put into good jobs, sucking money that could be put to good use. I like a lot of the other ideas here, though. Any legislators paying attention? - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 3:53 pm: 1.) give some control to the front line managers. Currently there is no incentive for them to cut costs. Use less paper, travel less, etc, and maybe those employees can get a percentage of the savings back for new computer monitors, or new chairs or even a bonus (i know the bonus is currently not allowed in state govt.). Money is saved, but the employees get a portion for their efforts. 2.) Charge an entrance fee for state parks, a low in-state rate and higher out-of-state rate. 3.) privatize most state historic sites. Give them to local foundations or governments. 4.)Set up a BRAC type commission to close state facilities. 5.) Send all CMS functions except insurance back to the agencies. CMS is the real Soviet style bureaucracy. - Tessa - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 4:22 pm: “Set up a BRAC type commission to close state facilities” And what state facilities do you proposed to close? And where do you propose to send the people who are there? Some people end up on the streets with nowhere to go when they leave or places close. Funding would have to follow these people into the community and most agencies aren’t able to deal with the issues many of these people have. Some will end up in the prison, already overcrowded, system. Others will end up in nursing homes, even though there are court cases that dictate this isn’t legal. Talk to guardians who have gone fromone placement to another looking for the right option and feel that the state facility is the best place. Talk to people from both sides and look at the turnover from community agencies as compared to state facilities. Talk to communities that don’t want any more of “those homes” built. In a perfect world, this would be great. But either way, it takes money from the state and federal government. And bottom line, it’s what is best for the person served. Speaking from experience. - Dan Johnson-Weinberger - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 4:33 pm: If you want state employees to take the train, then we need to buy additional service from Amtrak to get a morning express train and an evening express train. There are only three trains a day. There should be eight or nine. But going to five a day, with an express each way for employees, is a great way to start. (Yes, I’m shilling for the bill that I’m working on for the Midwest High Speed Rail Association to spend $10 million new GRF to get the additional service and then save employee travel, but it is relevant to the discussion!) - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 4:49 pm: I agree with nearly all of the suggestions, many of which are excellent. I can’t agree with income/property tax swap though. Suburbanites will pay higher overall taxes if this is implemented. I hope the governor sticks to his promise on income taxes..it’s not just City of Chicago and downstaters who are struggling under s huge burden of taxation. Reducing the number of Illinoisians in institutional care would be a huge benefit–financially, and, more importantly, from a human perspective. Most families want to care for their relatives who are in difficulty–whether they are prisoners, the disabled, the mentally ill, foster children. It makes no sense to lock them up in institutions, or keep them in foster or group care homes. Illinois has a comparatively high number of children in foster care (despite huge decreases primarily achieved under the Republicans) and a high rate of adults in institutional care. We need to start changing this now, and give their families the support they need to care for these individuals. Insitutions should not exist to provide jobs, and obsolete jobs at that. - Tessa - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 5:29 pm: I realize I shouldn’t take that last comment personally, but wow, it’s my job to make my job obsolete. I’m in the business of providing services to help those people I serve move to different places - in the community. We regularly place individuals in community agencies and see a portion of those come back to us in greater need than when they left. And, as soon as we have an opening there are numerous people knocking on our door wanting to admit someone. Lots of people we serve in the state have families that can’t take their family member home, due to age, etc.. Not because they don’t want to, they can’t. And it breaks their heart. But they don’t want them anyplace else because they know that staff stay a long time. The continuity that is needed is there. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. There’s a need for both in the state. Downsizing started long ago. The state’s trying to get out of the people business. Has been for a long time now. The newer facilities have small homes, and aren’t institutional at all. From a human perspective, it’d be a wonderful state if there were enough places for people to live and get everything they need. Illinois isn’t there. Not even close. I’ve worked both sides of the issue. As for the tax issue. Do a side by side comparison of Illinois to other states. Our taxes are lower than all but, what, 3 to 5 in the U.S.? We’re losing businesses, and communities are falling apart from business and factory closings. You have to look at all the information about it before you can make any kind of judgment call. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 5:42 pm: Ok, from a computer techie point of view: 1. NO MORE PowerPoint enabled presentations allowed anywhere in State government. If you use one in a presentation after a specific, well publicized date, your employment with the State of Illinois is immediately terminated. I hate to think how much time has been wasted by all of the various agencies statewide trying to tweak those things. 2. Mandate use of Open Source (Linux) software as the PRIMARY platform for all future development in state government. Maybe Microsoft is better (VERY DEBATABLE, IMO), but when “you ain’t got no money, you ain’t got no money”. If it’s not afforable - find a way to make do with something that won’t kill your support budget off down the road. And if Open Source software is only 80% as good, but it’s also 80%+ cheaper, then that’s a big money saver. Besides, the licensing fee savings alone will be gigantic. 3. ALL future software development (starting effective next FY) has to be done in a web services based environment. Simply put, that means the actual application software has to run through an Internet web browser - PERIOD! If you want different systems to be able to ever have a basis for “talking to each other”, there has to be a firm committment to a basic underlying structure. And requiring use of an Internet/Intranet based structure in all new applications will solve that problem. Now, back to my regularly scheduled pipedream…. - Tessa - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 7:10 pm: Oh, I totally forgot about the computer software moneys! Do you know how much money they are spending for the licensing for Microsoft stuff? And you have to have a separate one for each computer. Where I’m at I believe it’s $100K or so we have or are having to spend. For stuff that’s going to be unusable soon. Time for some good old common sense, which is not gonna happen. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 7:57 pm: I LOVE the suggestion about Linux over Microsoft, but as a non-techie I wonder how secure that would be. Before you pounce, I know Microsoft has huge security concerns of its own, but how does Linux compare (or other open-source products)? Also, if you’re talking about building an all-Web interface, are you talking all-FireFox or all-IE? As you know, they’re miles apart as far as standards go… - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 8:46 pm: Fire Lon Monk Fire Bradley Tusk Don’t allow Tony Resko and Chris Kelly to make money Cut back on travel Cut back on security - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 8:47 pm: Unicameral Legislature Combine Comptroller and Treasurer into one appointed post Eliminate Lieutenant Governor Eliminate Illinois Arts Council - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 8:51 pm: Medicaid and pensions are growing faster than other budget costs. My guess is the Legislature won’t reform pensions. With Medicaid, stop paying for discretionary surgery. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 9:01 pm: reduce state police ,oh sure speed is out of control and has been for over 10 years less troopers today than 20 years ago , you are same person that would complain because an interstate is closed for hours because of the idiot drivers we have today ,who do you think controls how many troopers carry Blogos bags , he does 2 of the 3 top security people were removed from previous security details because of problems , 1 just happened to work on Blogos election camp,I agree make people live in Spfld,CMS is just a self made middleman that takes a cut of everything,individual agencies can but supplies cheaper at SAMS CLUB,computers cheaper from DELL,buy new cars instead of spending $12,000 to repair cars that have over 160,000 miles on them,hold employees pay at current levels instead union employees got 20% increases over 4 years , oh sure they pay more to their pensions but Blogo gave them more money to pay for it, and what does that mean , when they retire their pension will be higher. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 9:12 pm: I LOVE the suggestion about Linux over Microsoft, but as a non-techie I wonder how secure that would be. Before you pounce, I know Microsoft has huge security concerns of its own, but how does Linux compare (or other open-source products)? Also, if you’re talking about building an all-Web interface, are you talking all-FireFox or all-IE? As you know, they’re miles apart as far as standards go… — Ok, first off - a disclaimer: I’m not a Linux Zealot, but over time I’ve become extremely disenchanted with Microsoft, more so recently. First off, Linux is probably more secure than Microsoft from a application standpoint, because Linux doesn’t have all those ActiveX capabilities embedded like Windows does. ActiveX, while conceptually being a great tool, also has turned out to be a hackers (actually, they should be called “crackers”) best friend. The result is that you end up building good quality application software running in an operating environment where bugs and holes are constantly being discovered and reported, and oftentime the application of Microsoft “service packs” (a/k/a “Bug Fixes”) ends up breaking the application software. I’ll take Linux any day to avoid the constant blizzard of of “Service Packs” (see MS WinXP Service Pack 2 for some real horror shows). The releases of both SR4 for Win2K Pro & especially SR2 for WinXP Pro have really soured me on Microsoft “security”. Secondly, on the all-Web interface, I’d say build not for the web browser (such as IE, Firefox, Netscape, Safari, etc.), but instead build according to the web based application development tool you select (no role for Flash, please). If I was the “software tool selection god”, it wouldn’t be what I would specify as much as what I wouldn’t allow to be used because it would be too proprietary. That means no asp.net (back on that licensing cost bandwagon) or vb.net Plain old ASP, Perl, PHP, or anything of that ilk would be just fine, and most importantly, you’d be able to get access to lots & lots of developers and support people because they’d be interested in creating something that they’d find to be “cool” (and nothing interests DP folks as much as being part & parcel of creating something “cool”). Just as a btw, I use both IE & Firefox at home and on the road. I tend to find that Firefox (with v 1.03) tends to allow me to access about .9975% of everything I need (which is a bunch), so I think which web browser you develop for is a dying, if not virtually dead issue - develop your application to run on all of them. Just my .02 - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 9:20 pm: Let’s eliminate most of these goofy contracts and let the employees hired by the state do their work. The ethics contract for the California company is a great example. No one employed by the state could come up with ten questions for an ethics test???? We had to pay $275,000 to an out-of-state consultant to come up with that test. The test is an insult to anyone who has taken it. If you want to give someone a gift, at least do it in Illinois. Eliminate most of the contracts and let the state workers do the work they were hired to do. Most of them are capable. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 10:20 pm: There are a few things IDOT could look at: 1. IDOT spends $100 million, probably more, on consulting engineers each year. With their overhead expenses folded in, these firms are charging their employees to the state at about $80/hour. Some top Chicago firms are charging more like $150/hour. Is it possible the state could hire additional staff to do some of the same work for about half that rate, even when benefits and pensions are figured in? 2. IDOT’s technical staff is heavy in construction and materials inspectors and engineers. While construction shuts down in November and stays shut until March or April, many of these employees are given make-work tasks to get by while waiting for spring. Meanwhile, the state hires temporary employees to plow snow, as well as keeping a permanent staff on hand to mow grass in the summer and plow snow in the winter. Couldn’t some of the construction/materials people be put on snow duty in the winter, to lessen the need for outside hired help? There are political contribution and union issues here that will probably stop these ideas from going anywhere, but, hey, you asked the question. And don’t even get me started on CMS. When they took over the building and fleet management duties, and even the public relations duties, over from the respective agencies, they have caused a huge disconnect between the needs of the agencies and the ability to provide these needs. It’s just another layer of needless, inefficient (and I daresay, “Soviet style”, with all due respect to Rod) bureaucracy in the way things are done. - Anonymous - Friday, Apr 22, 05 @ 10:49 pm: I agree with so many previous comments, I just have to repeat my favorites: Eliminate Lt. Governor (Quinn should propose this, it could be his good government legacy). Rod can’t really propose this, it will look like retaliation. I think there is merit to keeping Treasurer and Comptroller both. Chicago to Springfield travel is excessive and ridiculous. G-Rod has told so many hires “yeah, you can live in Chicago” for positions that used to be mandated Springfield posts. I’d like to see the travel vouchers for this administration. State Police force is too big and they need to stop giving me speeding tickets. Get minor drug offenders in school, out of prisons. Eliminate some (not all) legislative liaison positions for departments that report to the Governor. Most of their jobs are about budgetary issues anyway, and the department heads do much of the legislative work, not to mention - they report to the Governor - who sets the budget. It’s totally redundant. Or am I missing something? - Anonymous - Saturday, Apr 23, 05 @ 8:54 am: I say we get rid of the Inspector General’s Office. Anyone who works in state government knows this was created just for appearances. With all the unethical hirings, firings, contracts, and appointments going on we have yet to have any results from this office. Everyone knows alot of these things have been reported. A lot of state employees are afraid to report these things because their names may be “leaked” to the administration. I have a question for the readers - is it unethical to hire employees who are not qualified for positions (little experience and in some cases no college degree) and place them under lucrative personal contracts or in upper management positions? Just a question, it wasn’t on the ethics test….. - Roy Slade - Saturday, Apr 23, 05 @ 11:58 am: Wow! After reading this thread- I am left boggled as to my comments. First of all, there is no doubt that CMS has gotten so bloated and focused on making life difficult for other state agencies-that is the first place to literally blast off the face of the earth. Let me give you an example-do people realize that they add 10-25% to every vehicle repair done on other agencies vehicles-even if they DIDN’T DO THE WORK! Lets say you have engine trouble in a state vehicle-you take it to the dealership and the dealership repairs it. The dealership is required to send the bill to one of the various state garages around the state-who just add their “handling fee/processing fee” to the bill-then mails it to the agency to pay. If they do the work at one of their state garages at a prison, the work is done by a correctional inmate-and billed as if it was completed by a union garage employee. How can they add 10-25% to a bill when the work was completed by the dealership? Here is another example-CMS charges all state agencies for their “phone services.” They charge hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars at the larger institutions just to compile the phone bills-and then the using agency has to pay the bills. CMS considers this a “revenue source”- missing the point that it is ALREADY STATE TAX DOLLARS GOING FROM ONE AGENCY TO ANOTHER AGENCY! No matter how you attempt to rationalize this-it is just another example of abuse of our tax payer dollars! As to the ethics of the CMS’s personnel department- I get a feeling that we will hear much more in the near future as to the “hiring practices” and potential ethic problems that have occurred. Any state employee can easily point to new employees hired under this administration in big PSA or SPSA jobs that barely have a high school degree-let alone a college degree. They simply have “created” their own rules-and may have to pay the price…. As to the posters who want to charge entrance fees to get into state parks…..what are you smoking??? Please understand how fortunate the people of Illinois are to have such fine state parks and recreational areas! The overwhelming majority of the men and women that work at these areas are great state employees-and the problems aren’t with them-the brutal fact is the agency “leaders” and the governor simply don’t care about the state parks! They are extremely short staffed-but most sites will function because they love what they do, and most went to college to prepare for this job. The reality is, when you look at the recent layoffs in state government, and then look at the new employees hired over the past two years-you will realize that the governor and his administration operate on one theory- “we don’t care-its our turn.” - Anonymous - Saturday, Apr 23, 05 @ 11:59 am: Don’t have Victor Reyes clients like Lochner and DuPage government have special privileges. Don’t hire Victor Reyes niece. - Anonymous - Saturday, Apr 23, 05 @ 2:52 pm: Evil Roy Slade made most of my recommendations. He is right about CMS garages. This is one of the biggest scams in state government and we as state employees are not even allowed to discuss or complain about the 20% add-ons to car repairs. What is it about these CMS garages that make them bullet proof? Get rid of all agency personnel departments and CMS personnel department since the gov’s office does all the hiring through the county chairmans, from SPSA’s, PSA’s, union positions, part-time minimum wage workers, to internships. No need for interviews, employment applications, promotional applications, grading of resumes/applications, etc. Think of the paper that could be saved. And as for Illinois state parks, they need to be managed by professionals land managers, not privatized for financial gain. Our natural resources can only be protected, enhanced, and enjoyed by everyone when “making money” is taken out of the equation. - SpringPatch - Saturday, Apr 23, 05 @ 3:48 pm: Fire Teresa–the state employee poster. Fi she has time to post, she isn’t doing her taxpayer funded job. - Tessa - Saturday, Apr 23, 05 @ 4:24 pm: Rich may end up wanting to fire me, who knows. That’s strictly up to him. As I commented somewhere else here, I can’t post on taxpayer time because I don’t have internet access at work - I’m also too busy really working trying to better peoples lives that I work FOR (that would be people who can’t defend themselves). I don’t need to be told how to spend my working time, as I utilize it quite well, doing good things. This is for fun. Any commenting or posting I do, I do on my own time from home. And in case you didn’t notice, Springpatch, I’m one of untold many state employees who frequent this site. Apparently I hit a nerve? Just fire all state employees. Start a rebellion! - Anonymous - Saturday, Apr 23, 05 @ 6:48 pm: Don’t have State employees write political letters or post on a blog. Don’t hire Victor Reye’s relatives. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Saturday, Apr 23, 05 @ 11:34 pm: I’m happy to have my “back of the napkin” math called into question. Somewhere out there Don Snyder actually did the math for us. Someone want to request a LRB report? I’ll just point out that the fiscal notes always say its $20K for additional inmates, but the number of guards never goes up. As for what to do with the remaining facilities, I think that the governor was right about that one, but his motives wer so questionable, it undermined everything. Yes, prisoners should be in less costly places to run that have better security. That’s a no-brainer. No one doubts we can save money. Maybe the Illinois Taxpayers Federation could lead the charge? - Tessa - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 8:33 am: I’ve never been asked to write a letter for anyone. I have written my own letters on my own time, none of which have ever been answered by the leadership of our state. Free speech is there for a reason. On their own time, employees of any business can blog, write letters, do whatever they want. That goes for all the state employees who come here, or go to any other blog. - Anonymous - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 9:09 am: The “anonymous” poster who doesn’t want state employees writing political letters or posting on the blog must be Bradley Tusk or Lon Monk… - Anonymous - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 9:12 am: You have a good point, someone in the administration must be taking notice. - Anonymous - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 9:48 am: This was a great read from everyone. I might add something also. The waste in day-to-day operations is awful. Why does the governor’s name have to be on forms and publications? When he or she is no longer there, thousands of items have to be destroyed, wasting untold tax payers dollars. There are still thousands of tote bags with Ryan’s name on them stored somewhere. Also, why are some agencies’ IT equipment and software 5 generations back, while others get top of the line every year? If we all had the same basic stuff, we could communicate more efficiently instead of having to retain WordPerfect and Word on our desktop, because some doofus can’t let go of WP because that’s all he can operate. I agree with the other who said there is a lot of waste in middle management. I wear about 4 hats right now and others are added whenever there is a need, because 1. I have an advanced education and 2. I can pick up things quickly. My senior supervisor on the other hand, sits at his desk, thinking great thoughts and coming up with pie in the sky ideas which never come to fruition. And to address the CMS comments, it appears from Saturday’s paper that it’s starting to come apart at the seams. Can’t wait for the audit report. - EvilTerry - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 9:58 am: “How about making every state employee - from management down to the front-line - justify their position and salary. For every hardworking employee, there’s one or more messing around on taxpayer time with not enough to do. This will never happen politically, but it’s the true definition of cutting waste and inefficiency.” Please don’t give this administration something else to look at contracting out!! In fact, this is just the sort of thing that CMS would LOVE to contract out to some well connected firm! Then they could spend millions of tax dollars-funnel it through the agencies so that the workers actually do the work-and then the new director of CMS can actually tell the media that “this saved the state $9 for every $10 it spent”- or something inane like that. Please don’t encourage them! Another thought-there is no legitimate reason that taxpayers should have to pay an entrance fee to go to the various state parks in Illinois. I grew up camping with my family and now my kids are getting the same-sometimes two or three times a month. The Illinois state parks are, for the most part, a much better experience than those in our neighboring states-and with the price of gas, camping is one of the cheapest ways to spend quality time with family and friends. We obviously have our favorites-and we tend to go to the sites that are clean, safe, and that have “things for the kids to do”! (I am quite concerned as to how they will be this summer, with all the layoffs and budget cuts.) Please focus the attention where it needs to be- CMS, CDB, and upper management in the agencies. That is where the “inefficiencies” are. - the Other Anonymous - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 10:30 am: A lot of the comments here are really directed towards what political candidates call “waste and inefficiency,” as in “my plan will be paid for by eliminating waste and inefficiency.” My suspicion is that simply eliminating waste and inefficiency will not solve Illinois’ fiscal crisis. Government agencies should be well run, and I expect government managers to be good stewards of public funds. And, I suspect that we can change a lot of rules and regulations to create incentives for government managers to save money without reducing the quality of services. That said, eliminating waste and inefficiency alone will not get to the core of the fiscal crisis. Part of the solution is increased revenues through changing the tax structure and/or economic growth. But real, long-term spending cuts require changes in policy, some of which may initially cost money. Yellow Dog Democrat points to one area by suggesting changing how we spend money on drug offenders. Another area is health care. Medicaid costs would probably decrease if there was increased availability of public health services in low-income areas, so that emergency rooms do not become the only treatment option for poor people. Somehow we need to create a state budgetary system that rewards fiscal responsibility and encourages programs that save money in the long term. - Anonymous - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 11:18 am: I am going to keep harping on de-institutionalization (of non-violent offenders, the disabled, the mentally ill and others) because I think it is so critically important to the recipients of the service themselves. I can’t imagine that many of us see ourselves living happily in an institution if we become disabled or become too old to care for ourselves. And if our relatives or children make a mistake, don’t we want them at home on house arrest rather than in a potentially dangerous prison setting. I think institutional jobs are obsolete just because they are performed in institutions not because the work itself is obsolete. In some countries doctors routinely make house calls. In some states, even profoundly mentally ill and disabled individuals live in small (2 to 6 people) homes right in the community, with all their care provided there. I have seen this. I am not certain exactly what Tessa does, but couldn’t this service be provided in someone’s home. Deinstitutionalization is cheaper, but that is not the main reason to do it. And institutions should not exist solely for the purpose of creating or keeping state jobs. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 11:22 am: Those who are suspicious that cuts and restructuring alone can solve our problems alone are correct. We are without doubt pennywise, pound foolish. As for health care, there’s an excellent NY Times series by Paul Krugman on why our health care system is so screwed up. One suggestion I would make, in agreement with Pres. Bush (gasp), is to switch every hospital and doctor’s office in Illinois to an electronic medical record system. Bush says EMR can reduce medical costs by as much as 20%. I’ll give it at least 10%. But there are other benefits too. It will help the feds stop medicaid fraud, like the doc who was ordering unnecessary angioplasties (that’s invasive surgery) so he could bilk Medicaid. They didn’t catch him until after over 100 unnecessary procedures and he killed a patient. It also helps hospitals and doctors increase the efficiency of their billing, to make sure that they recover everything they are entitled to from insurance companies. Patients and employers (including the state) benefit by preventing medical errors like drug interactions and unnecessary surgeries, by an estimated 50%, reducing added health care costs. According to the non-profit, business-backed Leapfrog Group’s survey, only 5 hospitals in Illinois have implemented EMR. I would also suggest — and this is a major shift in the way govt. does business — looking at how other states have changed their budget and appropriations process. Instead of using last year’s bad budget as a starting point, we should start with a list of goals we’d like to achieve and let government egencies bid against each other to get the job done. I don’t give a rat’s _ss whether IDOC or IDPH or DHS runs the substance abuse treatment program. I care about results. I think the earlier suggestions about merging the comptroller and the treasurer are a bad one. There’s a reason we separated these two offices. I would suggest moving to a two-year budget cycle instead of appropriating on an annual basis. And someone needs to be thinking of what we want our budget will look like 5, 10, 20 years out. Policy makers are going to continue to sacrifice longterm goals for short term gains unless we change the system to reflect our longterm aspirations. - Dan Johnson-Weinberger - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 4:27 pm: To the open source advocates — I think Representative Howard would be interested in a bill like this. Would you be willing to draft up some language that clearly directs the state how to start purchasing open source software? I’ll take it from there and ask Representative Howard if she’s interested. I’ve spoken with her about it and she is definitely sympathetic. But neither she nor I is an expert on how it actually works, so any expert help would be appreciated. My email is dan@djw.info - Yellow Dog Democrat - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 5:55 pm: As long as Dan is going high-tech, why not look into switching the state phone system to VoIP? And for not just low-hanging fruit, but fruit that’s laying on the ground and rotting, how about implementing the recommendations from DCEO’s report from last year on campus energy efficiency. It found that some simple changes would cut $18-$25 million from the university system’s $93 million a year energy bill. As far as I know, those recommendations haven’t been implemented yet. - Anonymous - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 8:13 pm: There’s an old saying about if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we are destined to repeat them over and over.I’ve been around town for the better part of 30 years. I spent a great deal of my time in my very first State job, at CMS’ predecessor agency, cleaning up the mess left behind by failed attempts at consolidation and by mismanagement throughout the agency. Besides having the name John Filan all over the documents then and now (at least the documents we could find) very little has changed about those “ideas,” and most of them are no good. What agency director is going to have real confidence in a CMS PIO? Right. About as much as s/he does in one of those motor pool cars with 160,000 miles. Oops. Strike that-they closed the motor pool, because Maximus said so. Then there’s the centralized internal audits office. Read any recent agency compliance audit report to see how much Bill Holland thinks of that idea (Clue: only slightly more than the efficiency initiatives payments..) Then ask any agency who has tried a VoIP project how much fun it is to get one of those through the CMS telecom office. My point here is that for most of the “low-hanging fruit” and many of the other administrative or managerial changes Illinois could make, the existing admin support infrastructure in CMS and OMB is absolutely unable to handle the work. To change in the short run is not a pleasant proposition, either. Take away the consultants making many of the decisions, who is left? If these organizations were stronger (and in fairness, had been stronger in the past) we would not be living with a lot of the nonsense that is so prevalent today. PS: Rich; I agree, you really got some great comments on this topic. Almost depressing because most of these don’t have a snowball’s chance you know where. Perhaps a future QOTD could narrow the topic to make the suggestions politically feasible. - Anonymous - Sunday, Apr 24, 05 @ 10:28 pm: Why does any chief of staff (mapes, etc.) make more than $100,000 a year? Should be capped at $100,000 a year. Combine Treasurer and Comptroller’s Office Have Governor’s office assume Lt. Governor’s office responsibilities and eliminate Lite Guv office Eliminate 25% of middle-and-upper level management positions (all those ass’t deputies) which tend to be larded with political hires - Anonymous - Monday, Apr 25, 05 @ 5:15 am: The “Administration” isn’t the only one wasting our money. State Ken “Middle Finger” Dunkin just put out a piece called “Know Your African-American Inventors and their Inventions” that was “Printed by Authority of the State of Illinois.” This gem of a piece includes the obscene legislator’s photo on the back, and is allegedly a “Public Service Announcement.” The brochure notes that African-Americans invented such items as the “Doorknob,” the “Kitchen Table,” the “Helicopter,” the “Motor,” and the “Toilet.” I thought the new ethics act prohibited this sort of nonsense. At least common sense should. What are the House Democrats doing with such obvious wastrels? - Jack Welch - Monday, Apr 25, 05 @ 8:46 am: The “decentralize CMS” crowd would ignore decades of progress in the private sector at centralizing support services. There’s a reason private companies streamline or outsource non-core functions — they detract from the core business mission and are grossly, GROSSLY inefficient. The fact is, the savings from consolidating functions have already been realized in each of the last two budgets. Does that create lots of bureaucratic pain as people sort through how to change the way they do business? YES. Should taxpayers care? NO. We live in the 21st century, it’s time for state employees to learn how to be more efficient. Could CMS be doing a better job? SURE. So could everyone at the state. Step up to the plate and be professional about the need to do more with less. It would be criminal for the administration NOT to try to consolidate and harmonize some of the overlapping, duplicative, inefficient services that have nothing to do with taking care of veterans, foster children, parks, etc. - Anonymous - Monday, Apr 25, 05 @ 9:38 am: Nice try Bradley, but you couldn’t be Jack Welch’s bag boy. You also should watch the use of the word “criminal.” If the savings have already been realized, why can’t anyone but Filan find them? The difference between the private sector and the public sector, especially in Illinois and in particular the past two long years, is that the private sector makes the changes, makes them work, or suffers the consequences either in its profitability, stock price (if public) or both. In the public sector, there is no similar accountability. Let’s face it-no matter how bad this CMS audit turns out, what is going to happen? Until someone starts causing some REAL “bureaucratic pain”, be it Pat Fitzgerald or the 2006 electorate, look for more business as usual from these phony, hypocritical reformers. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Apr 25, 05 @ 10:55 am: First, I doubt that centralizing press functions has reduced press payroll. One thing they are not doing is cutting press staff. I hate to get too far of topic, but what centralization has done is create a bottleneck in the press operation. Because every release must be about the Gov and every release must go all the way up through the chain, the administration, and particularly the agencies, aren’t getting the volume of coverage they used to. What’s missing, to the Governor’s detriment, is the steady drumbeat of stories that state government is working. It’s been a noticable decline since rod took over. Here’s a comparison: since the beginning of the year Illinois (DCEO) has issued 29 press releases on economic development, supposedly one of the Gov’s major priorities. In the same time frame, Pennsylvania has issued 57 releases. I’d encourage the Gov’s press staff to go take a look at other states. If you’re swinging for the fence or the new york times every time you get to the plate, you’re going to strike out alot. And there aren’t many NYT subscribers in Mattoon. Rich, maybe a blog on improving the gov’s press operation would be a good topic? Sure would keep the posse busy. - jack welch - Monday, Apr 25, 05 @ 7:39 pm: I agree with you on press operations, that was simply about command and control, and it was a mistake (so I am clearly not Mr. Tusk). But the big dollars are in IT and purchasing, and nothing I’ve heard on those fronts is any different from the beefing I get in the private sector. - Tessa - Monday, Apr 25, 05 @ 8:16 pm: I think it’s scary and something needs to be done when a hunk of our budget has to be given, blindly, to CMS, and we never know where it goes or what it is used for. Thousands of dollares are going unaccounted for, and facilities/agencies are having to give them up to CMS. Seems to me there’s something fishy about this. And how sad that locally they admit that they know CMS adds to the bills for vehicle repairs and such, and it’s just accepted practice. Lastly,I understand the concept of wanting to centralize purchasing, because one would think that buying in bulk would make things cheaper, but when you don’t know when you’re going to get what you order and what you want isn’t what you get, then there’s a problem. Especially when what you’re waiting for affects the lives of people you serve. The more I think about all this stuff the more I feel the need to bang my head into a concrete wall, conveniently placed next to my desk at work (for use in the morning)…… - Anonymous - Tuesday, Apr 26, 05 @ 8:18 am: Just a question about the company doing all of the cosolidations, I/PAM. I have not been able to locate the actual story about them having the same contract with the state of Florida to consolidate alot of their agency personel, but it has been said by several different people that they pulled the contract during the first year saying it was not working. I do know that the state is dumping in the neighborhood of 25 million to I/PAM for this cosolidation, plus are recieving a $5.00 stipend per work order? that goes through each agency. The agencies are not only losing their staff that were able to act much more efficiently, i.e., send a request to an appointed agency contact, that contact calls Chicago to the central call center, who then sends out a fax to the agency (hopefully the right building) that has to track down the job to be performed because the work orders are not full of facts for the job, then go get necessary tools, etc. to do the job, return to do the job, then fill out the fax and return the fax back to Chicago, cost to the agency’s long distant phone bills? Not to mention the loss of equipment, annual budgets for equipment to be purchased, that the agencys bought but had to reliquish to CMS after the consolidations. Sounds efficient and cost saving to me. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.