December 2002
Dec. 26, 2002
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Dec. 23, 2002)Grading the Gov.-Elect
Gov.-elect Kathleen Sebelius just turned in her first test for grading by Kansans, and she'll be scored by three different panels on the results.
The grading will be done by Kansas citizens as a group, by political insiders, and by Republican legislative leaders (think French ice dancing judges).
For months, she literally beat Kansans over the head with her plan for a "top-to-bottom" review of state government and spending and vowed that the review would reveal large amounts of waste and inefficiency that had become imbedded in state government. Cutting that waste would be like, well, like losing weight. We'd all feel good about it.
The review was virtually her whole campaign, except of course for "holding education harmless," which means she didn't plan to cut the current level of state funding for elementary and secondary education.
The question on "top-to-bottom," though, is whether the initial listing of potential cuts and efficiencies--which she says are strictly ideas, some of which she will use, some of which she won't and some of which are politically impossible--is significant.
We're talking significant not just in the roughly $50 million or so that the proposals to her might generate in savings, but significant in terms of our expectations for that "top-to-bottom" review that was the centerpiece of her campaign.
Is $50 million enough to solve the state's financial problems? Of course not. Did we expect the initial run-through of state government spending and operations to solve the mess? Of course not. Not really.
But the real question for citizen test-scorers is whether the list of cuttings and trimmings and parings represents enough of a first-round savings that Kansans believe it was a legitimate priority of Sebelius' campaign, and not just a handful of words designed to woo Kansans who knew the state's financial situation is poor.
Maybe simpler: Were we tricked?
Second group of scorers? The political insiders. They look at the list, which contained some relatively tough additional cuts for social services and ask themselves, "when is the last time a Democrat voted to cut services to the handicapped?"
The political group will be figuring, of course, that Sebelius might just try to run those cuts through the Legislature, watch Democrats vote against them and Republicans vote for them. The result? Democrats look good, Republicans look heartless and Sebelius gets to either sign those cuts into law because "the Legislature forced me" or veto those cuts because someone has to prevent Republicans from threatening the life and health of Kansans.
Politically it is the social service cuts--the proposal is to freeze entry into the system by which the state provides services to the elderly and infirm so that they can stay in their homes instead of being moved into nursing homes--that may be the key to scoring here. It's a fairly ruthless political process, and the test can't be graded yet.
The third scorers, Republican legislative leaders, manage to look sincere, maybe even troubled, when they propound that the first round of "top-to-bottom" proposals didn't wrap up all the budget problems of the state, bring gentle and beneficial rains and temper winter's cold and summer's heat.
They'll be behind-closed-doors happy, though, that some of the suggestions from the "top-to-bottom" team will help them accomplish stuff they've wanted to do for years, but could never accomplish because it sounded too "Republican." Examples: shoot holes in the state purchasing division, outsource some law enforcement and security to private agencies, and privatize a variety of billing and accounting functions.
Here's how that sound bite goes: "Well, we always thought there might be some fiscal advantage to it, but now that a Democratic governor has made the suggestion from ideas from Democratic friends, I guess we'll take another look at it..."
So, how'd Sebelius do with the first top-to-bottom review results? It depends on who's doing the judging.
The $50 million in potential savings probably sounds like quite a bit, a reasonable effort, to most Kansans who don't live and work in the Statehouse where, as we like to remind people, the air is thin.
For the political sharpshooters, much of the $50 million is bait for traps for Republicans who are in office now or will be seeking office.
For legislative leaders, well, they were hoping for a high-octane solution that would solve the budget scrap but will have to settle for regular unleaded.
This is apparently just the first tank full. We'll see what Sebelius uses, what she discards and what else her team comes up with...
Dec. 19, 2002
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Dec. 16, 2002)Meat inspection: A turning point?
This may be the year that an old standby of Kansas government fades into the past, a victim both of budget-cutting and practical "do we really need this" reassessment of the role of state government.
The old standby: the Kansas Department of Agriculture's meat inspection program.
Not a big deal, you say? Well, depending on where you live, it either is or isn't. But for an agricultural state, where grain and the livestock that eats it are mainstays of the economy, chipping away at a small ag program may be the state's first real step at looking at the modern-day need for a significant program.
The meat inspection program operated by the state is narrow in scope: meat processing plants that pass the test can sell their products to the public inside Kansas. Successful inspection by the state squad means that the meat processed there is safe enough for all Americans, but because it is a state and not federal program, none of that state-inspected meat is to move across the state line. More than a dozen Kansas packing plants, which do the vast majority of meat processing in Kansas, are federally inspected.
Which means, of course, that those state-inspected plants, about 88 of them, are truly the last examples of locally grown meat going to local processors for local consumption. That's the full-circle ag that is a hallmark of Kansas' pioneer days. And, there is something almost wholesome and nostalgic about the concept.
But in the last six years, the number of those state-inspected plants has dropped by 42 percent, from 151 in 1996 to just 88 today. Of that shrinkage, 44 plants just went out of business, 24 changed their inspection status, either going to federal inspection with broader marketing opportunities or becoming custom plants where people bringing in livestock got their same livestock back wrapped in plastic and paper, and three moved into grocery stores. Oh, five new plants did open.
The state-inspected plants with their limited marketing areas may be the state's best example of what is happening to small agriculture. Agriculture now is about marketing, about distributing overhead of production over the largest number of pounds of beef, about finding the largest possible markets in which to dispose of product.
To some extent, those state-inspected packing plants represent a throwback to the good old days before the major innovation in the meat industry in the U.S.--mechanical refrigeration--which opened the sale of Kansas beef to the nation and the world.
What does state inspection cost? Between $750,000 and $1.5 million a year, the former the state share, the latter the state-plus federal stipend share.
From a purely mathematical perspective, the savings are relatively small.
As much as $1.5 million in savings is not a big number compared to hundreds of millions of dollars of state revenue shortfall. In fact, an astute state senator noted that for the money the state spends on the inspection program, it could match the salaries of the workers at the remaining state-inspected plants, send the workers home to wait for their state checks to arrive in their mailboxes and still save a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.
That's not going to happen, of course, but it is a good measure of the cost and benefit of a program that really isn't necessary anymore.
What would happen to the remaining state-inspected plants? They would probably opt either for federal inspections, which essentially are the same as state inspections, or maybe some of the other plants would make that ugly but businesslike step of looking at the amount of capital tied up in the locker plants and the return on that investment and decide whether this niche of the state's agricultural heritage is actually a reasonable, profitable business, or a lifestyle.
That's a tough decision and its the decision that more ag-related businesses in Kansas need to make.
The Legislature, or, who knows, maybe even one of Gov.-elect Kathleen Sebelius' "top-to-bottom" squads reviewing state government may be considering the fate of meat inspection right now.
It is an issue, small in dollars, but big in impact both fiscal and emotional for many rural Kansans, that may be as close as the Legislature can get to helping family farmers make their own business decisions.
If it wasn't for the state's tight economy, probably nobody would take a hard look at meat inspection. But we're there now, and at least some are taking that hard look.
Dec. 12, 2002
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Dec. 9, 2002)The meetings flap
We've got a big fight going on about whether Gov.-elect Kathleen Sebelius' "top-to-bottom" review teams ought to have their meetings in public.
Those teams are basically politically savvy people with real jobs and real lives who have agreed to spend a lot of hours thinking up ways to make state government more efficient, cheaper, or maybe just different enough to be noteworthy.
The review team members aren't getting paid, and so far, apparently are bringing their own coffee to the meetings. And if one of the review team members fell out of his/her chair and sprained his wrist, for example, not a dime of state money is going to be spent to pay his doctor bills.
These people aren't government policy-makers. They're essentially folks who have agreed to do brain-storming sessions and then submit their ideas, the good ones and the bad ones, to Sebelius for her to consider. The ideas she likes will then get a public airing where the media and the public can dissect them.
Meanwhile, we're figuring that anyone smart enough to get elected governor probably has a pretty good handle on what is a good idea and what isn't.
The real question probably is whether there is any great public good to be served by making those review squads meet in public.
But first, let's define public. For the news media, public means wherever reporters can go and take notes and pictures and pick up information that might or might not become stories. The public? Sorry, but in the real world of journalism, the public generally only gets in the way unless someone from that public makes a scene, objects to something, or figures a way to become part of what may or may not be a story.
Let's get that straight. We're talking about reporters attending meetings. Not the public in general. Did you ever see a public meeting where the reporters are out in the hallway trying to hear? Nope. It's the reporters in front, and the public out in the hallway trying to hear. And, what happens if a bunch of reporters attend a meeting where basically nothing interesting happens? Well, someone has paid mileage to those reporters, and they are on salary, so there better be a story there somewhere, or the reporter might as well have taken the day off. Let's look at the decision tree for the media.
The first public meeting is a story, because it's the first time the media has been let in to listen to what may or may not be offered up as a way to reshape government as we know it. The second meeting will be inherently less newsworthy because, well, it's not the first meeting anymore. And the third and subsequent meetings will be sort of catch-as-catch can for most of the media. They'll be alternative places for reporters to go if, say, there weren't enough entries in the Christmas lights contests to demand someone spend a full day looking at plastic Santas.
The news value of forums where good, bad or just silly ideas are floated for submission to the governor wanes quickly. Now, say that Shawnee County District Court judge agrees with the dozen news organizations that are splitting the bill for a pretty sharp lawyer to prosecute the concept that the meetings by un-elected volunteers ought to be held in public?
Railsters figure there are three ways to go:
One, of course, is for the review teams to just quit meeting. Sebelius says thanks, but she doesn't want to put her volunteers in a position to be second-guessed by the next day's paper. We're into the holiday season, and presumably they've got shopping to do.
Two is that the teams keep meeting, and the member who suggests maybe legislators can drink tap water instead of bottled water immediately is branded a foe of bottled water, of convenience for legislators, and therefore, an enemy of government as we know it. Some reporter probably will ask whether the anti-bottled water advocate is a genuine U.S. Citizen and has paid all his or her property taxes on a timely basis.
Three is that the groups keep meeting either by e-mail or phone and the media doesn't know a thing about it. Is this a big deal? Would reporters demand, for example, that if Sebelius had a bunch of friends over to her home to talk about government, that reporters be let in? We're hoping not.
What's the upside of opening the meetings to the public? Maybe a story or two about some folks trying to come up with either outright good ideas, or ideas that can be horsed around and made good, or maybe just some bad ideas that Sebelius can discard.
What's the downside? Well, either that Sebelius won't get the good ideas that she and the state need now, or maybe that she won't have the time to look clearly into some bad ideas and decide not to waste time on them once she's inaugurated.
And, we're wondering, whether this would even be an issue if just one paper or media outlet had to foot the bill for the lawsuit, instead of more than a dozen outlets splitting up the bill like you would a bar tab...
Dec. 5, 2002
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Dec. 2, 2002)Get out of town free idea
She's going to have trouble getting traction in the excitement of starting a new legislative session, but Senate Majority Leader Lana Oleen, R-Manhattan, has hit on one of the better ideas considered so far to make the 2003 Legislature more productive.
That productivity, as we Railsters recall, is one of the big things that many candidates for the Legislature made a lot of noise about during the fall election campaigns. Something about not wasting time on the taxpayers' dime, getting down to work; all that stuff that people who aren't in the Legislature think ought to be done.
Oleen, though she's a senator and didn't have to campaign for reelection this year, apparently got some of the campaign literature screaming about "down to business" and "quit wasting time."
Her idea is simple, so simple that it's almost daunting. You can't get down to business when there's no business to be done. Here's her idea:
On Jan. 13, inaugurate a new slate of state elected officers, swear in new members of the Legislature, give them a week to find their way around the building and locate the best restaurants near the Statehouse...then send them home for a couple weeks--without pay and off the 90-day legislative clock--to return on Feb. 3.
What? Go home for a two-week recess after getting all settled in?
This year, especially, Oleen's idea makes a lot of sense.
There's a new governor in town, of course, and state law gives that new governor an additional 21 days after the inauguration to present her budget to the state legislature.
That could mean that then Gov. Kathleen Sebelius may not reveal her budget until Feb. 3. Now, Sebelius hasn't said yet that she intends to use some of that bonus time to give her initial budget a final once-over, but it sure wouldn't be a bad idea. First impressions count, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with making sure that her first budget is just the way she wants it.
Oh--and let's not forget that little bit of gamesmanship possible by having the Legislature out of town before it gets too frisky in trying to undo outgoing Gov. Bill Graves' plan to pare down the current fiscal year's budget gap to a nice round zero. Starting from zero budget deficit is important for Sebelius' new budget. You know that sinking feeling you get when you're painting, and discover you are about a quart shy of being able to finish off the bedroom? Sebelius doesn't need that.
And, let's not forget that there's some processing time between the day that a governor formally presents his or her budget and the time necessary to turn that budget into a set of bills for the Legislature to consider. The budget document that Sebelius will present also must be field-stripped by legislative budget experts so they an find out exactly what the new budget would do to every agency under the flag.
Now, do you want your legislator hanging around Topeka taking up bad habits for two weeks while there's absolutely nothing to do? Didn't mom say something about "idle hands?"
The concept is time-shifting.
Take a couple weeks when everyone in the Legislature is afraid to do anything that costs any money and shift those couple weeks to the end of the session when legislators know what Sebelius has proposed for her budget and when the real wrangling of the session takes place: in early May.
Oleen's plan would have the Legislature out of town by mid-May. She's not simple enough to believe that there won't be a terrible fight over spending and cutting and all the fiscal stuff, but she'd rather see it done during the 90 days allotted the Legislature, not on overtime after the traditional early May adjournment. The time-shift means that every day's newspapers won't start every legislative story with whining about "in overtime sessions" or "working past their deadline" or "costing the state $50,000 a day," or whatever reporters want to say to give what is essentially a tedious process an air of immediacy.
Winding down the Legislature is a little like rescuing trapped miners. You don't pay rescuers to hang around the shaft in case there's a cave-in. You call them when you need them. Hanging around Topeka with virtually nothing important to do the last two weeks of January doesn't sound like a good use of time or legislative pay, does it?
It sounds like Oleen has a pretty good idea. Does that mean it will happen?
Don't bet on it.
We've seen years when the Legislature waded through good ideas to get to ones that weren't as good, but more familiar.