|
|
|
|
| B- | Wisconsin |
• Population (rank): 5,556,506 (20)
• Average per capita income (rank): $24,875 (20)
• Total state spending (rank): $30,125,092,000 (16)
• Spending per capita (rank): $5,422 (22)
• Governor: Jim Doyle (D)
• First elected: 11/2002
• Senate: 33 members: 18 D, 15 R
• Term limits: None
• House: 99 members: 47 D, 52 R
• Term limits: None
This isn't a fun time to be a state employee in Wisconsin. Hiring freezes, ongoing budget disputes and a lagging pay scale help explain why Wisconsin has the second-highest turnover rate in the country for veteran employees. The personnel situation even sounds a little Kafkaesque when you hear the story of Georgia Thompson.
A well-respected state procurement supervisor protected by civil-service rules, she was briefly jailed in 2006 in a politically motivated prosecution. An appellate court threw the case out in an afternoon, but the episode didn't do much to help overall employee morale. "Every single person in the state's civil service is saying, 'There but for the grace of God go I,'" says Mordecai Lee, a professor of governmental affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "'Somebody somewhere is going to distort the decisions that I make and I'm going to be in the same position as her.'"
While Governor Jim Doyle's Accountability, Consolidation and Efficiency Initiative has led to some improvements in the state's contracting processes, this, too, has been a source of considerable tension for state employees. "The state is contracting out for all sorts of things without monitoring them sufficiently," complains one recent high-level Department of Revenue retiree. "The state was willing to spend money on outside 'experts' but wouldn't spend the money necessary to retain the qualified personnel needed to run its agencies and programs."
Intricate cost-benefit analyses are now required before contracting out for state activities, but agency managers complain that their inability to hire additional personnel makes the difficult-to-produce findings irrelevant. Last year's hiring freeze meant that for a period of time one of the state's largest agencies, the Department of Health and Family Services, was lacking a procurement chief. Turnover in the Department of Corrections, another of the state's largest customers for goods and services, has led to the loss of its delegated purchasing authority — and the flexibility that came with it. Now, just about everything the Corrections Department buys must be cleared by the state's central purchasing office.
The irony is that Wisconsin is widely acknowledged to have a high-quality workforce. Its challenge will be to iron out some of the current problems before too much lasting damage takes place.
Wisconsin has been struggling with a structural budget deficit for years — the state ended fiscal 2007 with a $2.44 billion general-fund deficit. On the other hand, the state's handling of infrastructure is getting better. Although Wisconsin's backlog for general infrastructure maintenance is $1.2 billion, a pretty big number, the state has been spending a growing amount on it each year — enough to keep the figure from getting any larger. The backlog for roads and bridges is now down to $69 million. Both the Department of Transportation and the Department of Administration seem to have a solid grasp of their needs, aided by sophisticated asset-management computer systems.
Unfortunately, this kind of planning for the future hasn't been commonplace in most other facets of management. Some agencies engage in efforts at strategic planning but the central government hasn't joined the party. "Policy making by crossing their fingers is the best way to explain what long-term planning means in Wisconsin," says Professor Lee, a former state legislator himself. Agencies monitor and report on performance internally to varying degrees, and performance measures play a small role in the state's budget process.
Wisconsin's Legislative Audit Bureau remains among the most important and credible audit shops in the country. Not only has the office proved itself willing to go after the hot-button news items of the day, it has managed to direct the legislature's attention to crucial management deficiencies. Spurring legislative action in these areas is no small feat, especially in long-neglected sectors such as information technology. And all of the bureau's findings are more accessible these days thanks to new, tech-savvy means of communicating findings to citizens, including podcasts, webcasts and RSS feeds.
For additional data and analysis, go to pewcenteronthestates.org/gpp.