Gov. Perdue today unveiled initial details on her plan to “reorganize” and “consolidate” state government. As she herself admits, the plan at this phase is merely in “broad strokes” and not very specific.
Among the details she does focus on, the primary specifics involve consolidating 14 agencies down to 8, along with privatizing IT and purchasing services. She also calls for a hiring freeze (nothing new there), but qualified that freeze in her press conference stating that the freeze applied only to “non-critical” positions in her cabinet agencies, and will ask other agencies to do the same (if positions are “non-critical” why do they exist in the first place?).
Interestingly, she calls for a review of 150 of the more than 400 state boards and commissions, with the intent of eliminating “those that cannot be justified.” Justified by whom? And who will evaluate the justification? And why not evaluate all 400? I guess starting with 150 will have to do for now. For more information about all the state boards and commissions, check out this Civitas Institute article by former intern Sarah Hardin.
Overall, there is not much to see in Perdue’s plan thus far. The most concrete aspect is the consolidation of 14 agencies down to 8, which is a good thing on its face. But the devil will be in the details, and time will tell if that act will reduce the size and scope of state government to any noticeable extent.
She still has a very long way to go to arrive at a balanced budget.
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