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From Governing’s Georgia
A few months after he took office in January 2003, Governor Sonny Perdue announced an ambitious goal for his first term: He wanted to make Georgia “the best-managed state in the nation” by 2007. That was a pretty tall order, particularly for a government that over the years has grappled with hefty management issues and inefficiencies, including uncoordinated information technology, fragmented capital development, and disjointed strategic planning at the agency level. 
Perdue has taken some important first steps. His foremost effort so far has been the creation of the Commission for a New Georgia, a public-private partnership to analyze state government for increased efficiency. With more permanent status than a traditional blue-ribbon group, the commission is divided into a dozen smaller task forces that focus on issues ranging from procurement of supplies to tourism promotion and workforce training. The commission has come out for restructured management of state-owned property and a leadership institute to better develop the state’s workforce. One change already in place is the appointment of a Director of Implementation — which in itself provides hope that the commission recommendations won’t languish on a shelf. Perdue also has installed the state’s first chief financial officer and chief operating officer, and has reorganized accounting and financial reporting functions under a new state accounting officer. “The current governor came in and completely changed the organizational chart,” says Kelly McCutchen, executive vice president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. “He set it up to mirror a business.”
While Georgia is still far from Perdue’s prediction for 2007, there is a basis for optimism in the state’s recent experience with human resources management. Over the past decade, Georgia has created an entirely new HR system, one that is now likely the best in the country. The state does serious workforce planning aimed at finding employees with the necessary qualifications for future needs — as opposed to just looking for people with experience in specific jobs. The central personnel agency developed a competency dictionary that outlines 34 basic skill sets, and agencies use that framework to plan for their own future needs. They create performance plans for individual employees, establishing which competencies each worker will need to move up the career ladder. Meanwhile, Georgia has the ability to terminate underperforming employees without a great deal of red tape — something that it didn’t have until recently, and that many states still don’t have. Workforce planning in Georgia is now deeply integrated with the strategic planning process. In the past, agencies used to submit a plan in July and a budget proposal in September, with little thought about how those efforts meshed. In 2003, for the first time, agencies were asked to submit a single document that incorporated strategic direction, budget requests, workforce plans and technology needs. “That was a big ‘Aha!’ moment,” says Joyce Goldberg of the Georgia Technology Authority, the state’s new information planning agency. Some of Perdue’s biggest challenges will come in the financial arena. The state has relied on a few dubious budgeting gimmicks in recent years; some employee pay raises scheduled for October 2004 were pushed back to January 2005, buying $90 million in the short-run but ultimately saving no money at all. Last June, Perdue floated a plan to move final payroll dates into July, to save another $180 million. Facing a possible hit on the state’s credit rating, however, the governor changed his mind, leaving agencies scrambling to make last-minute cuts. Georgia continues to have trouble completing its financial reports on time. In the past few years, the reports have not been released until about 10 months after the end of the fiscal year; the 2003 report was still unavailable 18 months after the close of the fiscal year. When it comes to infrastructure, the information isn’t just late, it’s largely non-existent. Neither the Transportation Department nor the Georgia Building Authority tracks the level of deferred maintenance. In fact, the state isn’t even sure exactly what its assets are. In December, Perdue ordered a full inventory of state-owned properties.
Copyright © 2005, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are registered trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. |
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