Smaller state government

The troubled economy has shaken the bureaucracy in Augusta to its roots, creating intense pressure for the restructuring of state government. There currently are slots for more than 16,000 state workers — far more than are needed by the state of Maine in the 1990s.

When the Legislature convenes next week, it needs to hear from the public, which should remind its lawmakers that there are three compelling reasons to act now to shrink the size of state government:

The timing is perfect. Maine’s fiscal crisis demands a tough and appropriate response from its elected officials, a significant downsizing of executive offices, independent state agencies and legislative staff. This will cut the fixed costs, the overhead, of state government.

The state bureaucracy should be made smaller to reflect the taxpayers’ reduced ability to pay for it and to respond to the changing public demand for services. This is not a crusade to root out waste, fraud and abuse, but a practical consideration, to require government to adhere to principles of function and affordability. Many offices of state government simply are expendable.

Tax shifts. After they exhausted their supply of smoke and mirrors meeting a series of budget crises, the governor and the Legislature dumped far too much of the state’s financial problem on property taxpayers. If the public doesn’t demand that Augusta meet a greater proportion of the budget shortfall by reducing state spending, these elected officials will take the easy way out, again, and drop the bomb on the town hall. Towns and school districts have problems of their own. Augusta must be forced to deal with its administrative failures.

Maine taxpayers have a choice. They can demand that Augusta meet a greater proportion of the shortfall by reducing state spending, or, they can say nothing and either pay higher property taxes, or lay off teachers and police officers and leave the snow unplowed.

The choice is obvious.

Institutions, however, don’t change unless inspired, far-sighted individuals work from the inside, or external crisis forces people in authority to make necessary but unpleasant decisions about restructuring.

Because Augusta is the seat of the state bureaucracy, few people there are inspired to make deep cuts and disruptive changes.

The governor is the chief bureaucrat. State offices comprise his power base. He will be reluctant to order the changes that must be made.

Maine’s part-time legislators have friends and pet projects in state government, and a flaccid full-time legislative staff that is the power counterbalance to the governor’s bureaucracy.

Neither can be moved without the other.

The public must give this colossus a push, and keep pushing.