In August of 2009 the Douglas administration launched its own aggressive sounding initiative dubbed “Tiger Teams”.The “Teams” were comprised of about 35 high-level executive branch officials.The bureaucratic tigers were charged with combing state agencies in a search for government savings.
Now,months later Finance Commissioner Reardon has received no actual reports from the teams .Maybe Governor Douglas will find time to look into the “Tiger Teams” lack of success at finding wasteful spending after his overseas travel is completed.
Lawmakers on the Joint Fiscal Committee had expected some information about potential savings that “Tiger Teams” might have identified. The Douglas administration said it would create teams to scour state government for ways to save money given that big deficits are projected next year even if tax revenues stabilize.
“I have yet to receive the actual reports,” Reardon said.
Hey, I’m just as (perhaps sometimes more so) eager as the next guy to find and do away with bureaucratic duplicity and un-necessary institutional repetition… but it never ceases to drive me absolutely bonkers when Republicans get on the “lets centralize government” train. Isn’t de-centralization, like, one of their main political principles?
The Douglas Administration’s hopes for the state school system is the perfect example of GOP-pushed centralization in the name of, well, centralized power.
On another note- WTF is up with the VT GOP’s obsession with tigers? Catamounts, bear, moose, turkey… but tigers?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA – Freeps July 14 2009
What a joker this kid is, even if the punch line comes four months later:
The bullshit that comes out of their mouths when it’s convenient to make up shit is pathetic. The willingness of the press to stenographically repeat what, at the time, was an obvious pile of shit and with no critical assessment of how ridiculous the “tiger team” gimmick was, is also pathetic.
if the Governor had complied with the law, he wouldn’t have to create “Tiger teams”
as part of the Governor’s annual budget presentation, 32 V.S.A. § 307(c) requires a strategic plan for every agency & department; as you would imagine, such a plan must be based on – you know – real facts, and assumes the regular collection, analysis, and reporting of performance data; if the administration took this seriously, it would have the information necessary to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of everything the state does; it should be a tool for managers and a way to inform the public
sadly, this is not the case and compliance with this statute is spotty at best (usually because an agency head – like Con Hogan in the old days – understood the value of data and cared enough to actually do it); when I did some work for (then) State Auditor Ed Flanagan in the `90s, we issued two reports about this and nothing changed
moreover, the Leg. has never spanked the Governor for his failure to get serious about this; there is a real problem here; how can a Leg. force the administration to comply with the law?
note: it’s interesting how the same guys who complain that gov’t. can’t do anything right (or at least not like the private sector!) sometimes end up fulfilling the prophecy