Jul
3
This is where reason and aloha come in handy. State contract negotiations are scheduled to resume Monday. Let me tell you what to look for.
From the unions and their members, we the people of Hawaii need, and my mail suggests we can get, realistic understanding that something has got to give, and it is reasonable to expect concessions from employees who even now have more secure jobs than most people do.
From the governor and her administration, we need workmanlike solutions in concert with the union, and a realistic view of what union leaders can get ratified. If state officials use the crisis as a blunt instrument to downsize government, there will be more pain, more disruption to any nascent recovery, and it may prevent the opposition party from becoming more of a counterweight to the majority.
It needs saying that this is a lot to ask of either side.
When someone faces a 14% pay cut, or outright layoff, or even something more marginal, it may be difficult to keep reminding oneself that there are thousands of people in tougher situations right now.
When you’re in state government administration, and you know exactly where the non-performing workers are, it may be difficult not to try to use this situation to ram change into place.
I wouldn’t want to be the governor, who will be hammered no matter what she does, especially by other people who want to be governor, including a couple who might actually be very good governors one day.
I wouldn’t want to be HGEA executive director Randy Perreira, because I know that whatever contract agreement emerges from this, there will be some yahoo in the room who is convinced he could have done better. There always is.
Marie Laderta, the chief negotiator for the state, isn’t exactly in the catbird seat either, and she, too, may find herself in a conference room with some state official who convinced he could have gotten a better deal than she does.
Those of us who aren’t at the table - officials, employees, citizens - can help bring about a sensible solution by tempering our own comments for a bit.
Remember, we don’t just need a sensible solution, we need it fast, before the state budget deficit becomes worse.
We don’t want to become California.
Jul
3
Spoiler alert: if you read this blog post in its entirety you will know the answer to this week’s “Trick Question” feature in the last half hour of my weekly show on Hawaii Public Radio.
Because I did not have prolonged exposure to classical music as a child, but became enamored of it anyway, I am sensitive to, and grateful for, the many places that classical music sneaks into other music.
Think of all the people whose first encounter to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” was Elmer Fudd singing “Kill Da Wabbit!”
The rock band Yes, on the same album that contains “Roundabout” and “Long Distance Runaround,” has Rick Wakeman playing a telescoped version of a movement from Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.
The 1970s novelty hit “Joy” sounds like a Riverdance jib but is really a sped-up rendition of Bach’s ordinarily sedate “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Emerson Lake & Palmer rocked out to “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” nods to both “Air on a G String” and “Sleepers Awake” without actually quoting either theme in full. Mannheim Steamroller did something similar in its “Small Wooden Bachses.”
It was only recently that I stumbled on a much more obscure quotation of classical music in rock music. This is the part where I spoil this weekend’s “Trick Question” for you.
The spagnoletta from “Terpsichore,” by the 16th century composer Michael Preatorius, is the melody you hear on the instrumental fade of the 1960s cover of the “Wizard of Oz” song, “Ding-Dong, the Witch is Dead.”
Also on this week’s show: in the first half hour, the “Russian Easter” overture; in the second half hour, a jazzed-up version of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G minor; in the third half hour, Vaughan Williams’ Thomas Tallis variation bracketed by the original Tallis tune; and Sting will sing some John Dowland in the final half hour.
Jul
2
My email overflows with bile directed against state workers. I wondered if other news media were getting the same thing. So I spent awhile reading posts in response to furlough stories in the two Honolulu dailies. Yup: they’re getting it, too.
The general theme is that private sector people resent the healthy raises given to state employees over recent years, and, having had memorably bad experiences dealing with some of those same people, they want to see them squirm.
Jeff wrote in response to my last furlough post: “If state workers wanna cry about a three day furlough, just do a mass layoff. And see if they can find a new job.”
Surelyujest posted to the Honolulu Advertiser: “Everything that the state has to do takes about three times longer than necessary, and yet you think you guys are ENTITLED to have a job at my expense.”
Wendell, posting to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin: “Too bad the state can’t or won’t outsource more of the services.”
One bemused state employee replied, “Sorry you had to wait in line to renew your driver’s license.”
As you know if you read this blog regularly, I had bad experience with bureaucracy when my driver’s license expired last Friday, but a good experience when I actually renewed it Monday. The DMV people were really nice to me, and not only to me; the line actually moved pretty fast.
Yet I think the bemused guy is onto something. For people who have had bad experiences with bureaucrats, or otherwise have personal knowledge of public sector situations where there is more staffing or less work than would be the case in the private sector, there is a real desire for revenge in the form of furloughs, wage cuts or outright layoffs.
The most intelligent state employees realize that this is a potentially serious problem for them, and could one day trigger a “budget riot” in which taxpayers lose all patience and elect lawmakers who will cut the budget regardless of what the economy is like.
I think many state workers do recognize this, if only because so many have family members who work in the private sector, so they hear this, perhaps more lovingly, at the dinner table.
It has fascinated me for years that many bureaucrats actually buy into the idea that bureaucrats don’t work hard enough, because they don’t think you’re talking about them.
The “business model” of government
In the private sector, even nonprofits have executives who must answer to a board of directors, and there is a culture of controlling costs because they can’t “control” revenue. A company tries to sell more widgets. A nonprofit tries to raise more donations. But they can’t insist upon it. Having more control over costs than revenue, they focus on costs even when times are good.
In the public sector, there is enormous pressure from the public - the same public that complains about taxes - to add services. Each member of the public resolves this seeming contradiction by making the assumption that there is wasteful spending someplace else in government that can be cut. Some taxpayers who know better are still able to resolve the contradiction, because they believe, with some justification, that each state office could cut a little without reducing services.
But this rarely happens because, unlike private sector enterprises, government can control revenue, by raising taxes. The ability to raise taxes, coupled with strong forces against controlling costs that don’t exist in the private sector, makes government, not merely different from a private corporation, but basically the opposite of one.
Even now, when the state government is desperate to close a recession-produced revenue gap and balance its budget, outright layoffs are economically scary, because such a big chop to collective personal income will make the recession worse. Government is, in the current parlance, too big to fail.
Prosperous corporates can also grow too big, with too many people making too much money and not working hard enough. Two words: General Motors. But General Motors eventually got into a crisis that will force it to address the matter, even with federal loans to ease the pain. Government almost never gets into a crisis big enough to force that kind of action. In the current crisis, I predict that state employees will make temporary wage concessions to get the state through the back end of the economic slump, and, when times improve, those employees will expect restoration of those cuts and then some. Because of the risk of layoffs to the full economy, I think officials will go along with this.
Is there any way to cut state government without hurting the economy?
There is, but politically I don’t know if it will ever happen. The solution with the least pain would be to cap employment, forcing each department and each agency to reduce body count by one out of 50 employees per year. You could exempt school system employment at the school level but not in the head office. You could exempt emergency services as well. You could even allow departments to bank savings - if two people retire and you figure out how to cover their absence, you don’t have to cut a position the following year.
This would trim government very slowly, with very little pain. It would be similar to the private sector, but much gentler. The key point is to reduce the pace of shrinkage below the pace of churn, so you never have to let anyone go, merely restructure so that each departure that happens in the normal course of life produces a small savings. I call this dynamic restructuring, a never-ending process that makes downsizing more human and more bearable.
The funny thing about public outrage with bureaucrats is that the people they face at the motor vehicle office aren’t sloughing off. Most of the wasted time in government happens in the management ranks, where memos and meetings pass for actual work.
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