Grading Maine

Here’s one way to look at the just-released Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs report in which the management practices of the 50 state governments were evaulated and report cards were issued:

Maine got a C. Not great, but not bad. It’s on the wrong side of the bell curve (36 states did better), but at least it beat Alabama. Partisan bickering, budgetary trickery and a tendency not to finish what was started are still problems, but somewhat on the wane. Deferred maintenance — a measure of the extent to which state facilities are allowed to crumble — is high but being whittled down. The amount budgetted for routine upkeep of state buildings is still less than half of what it should be, but creeping up.

And while it might seem a a stretch to credit efficient, responsive state government with a decline in snowmobile fatalities from 12 per year to five, at least the Syracuse scholars found something positive to say.

Then the entire study could be shelved and forgotten, except for those rare occasions when an irate legislator in a white-hot fury over another unpleasant surprise waves a dusty copy around for emphasis.

Or, it could be put to some use. Instead of rationalizing it’s mediocre performance, Maine could study and emulate the top of the class, the four states that got A-minuses. Perhaps something can be learned from Washington, Utah, Virginia and Missouri.

Four diverse states, four varying approaches, two guiding principles: planning doesn’t just produce documents, it results in commitments; ruthless honesty is a standard accounting practice.

All four mandate long-range capital plans, from five to 10 years. All require regular, on-going audits of the condition of state buildings. All require that the annual budget for every state building has an adequate set-aside for routine maintenance.

Which means it is unlikely the state houses in Washington, Utah, Virginia or Missouri will start dropping chunks of plaster on the public. Or that a last-ditch $18 million health-and-safety project would mysteriously grow into $50 million worth of cosmetics.

It’s also unlikely these states would allow their juvenile corrections system to decay to a point that Amnesty International takes notice or that a plan to rebuild it would degrade into an argument among legislators over whether having buildings fit to house troubled kids should come before or after adequate education and treatment programs. Or that a plan passed by one legislature to restructure a prison system with the second-highest per-inmate costs in the country would be in danger of being scrapped by the next. Washington, Utah, Virginia and Missouri plan ahead and require those who would change plans to have good reasons.

These four states also hide nothing when it comes to the real costs of programs and make it clear precisely what results are expected. Every law passed in Washington contains a fiscal note projecting its cost far into the future. Utah does even better: its fiscal notes forecast costs not just to state government, but also to towns, businesses and individuals.

So there’s no way these states could pass a law such as Learning Results and still be uncertain a year later whether there will be increased costs to local school districts. No way could they cut state aid to education, dump the burden onto property taxpayers and declare a surplus. No way could they blunt the outrage over a sales tax increase with a law that creates a mechanism to automatically reduce the sales tax as it obliterates any chance of meaningful relief in the more onerous property and sales taxes. No way could they enact a tax break for business equipment, watch its cost soar and have no way to measure whether it actually creates new jobs.

The Syracuse report (www.maxwell.syr.edu/gpp) is an enlightening and, for an academic study, entertaining peek inside the classroom of Governing 101. Maine comes across as reasonably bright, fairly well-behaved, somewhat given to indolence, doodling and daydreaming. Like most C students, it just needs to sit up straight, pay better attention and work up to its potential.