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SACRAMENTO - Four-hundred managers from California state government attended a Performance Institute-sponsored forum May 20 to hear updates on reform initiatives underway in the Schwarzenegger Administration. While a final plan to restructure the state’s muddled bureaucracy has not been finalized, the forum, sponsored by the Performance Institute, served as a preview of the proposed reorganization that will streamline services, consolidate departments and provide desperately needed efficiencies to California government. Donna Arduin, Governor Schwarzenegger’s appointed Finance Director and Chon Guttierez, Executive Director of the California Performance Review—a consortium of 265 state employees tasked with reforming the state’s bureaucracy—delivered opening remarks and echoed the sentiments of many in California government: while tremendous progress has been made, continued improvements are absolutely necessary. “This was the first truly comprehensive look at what’s being done — and what else can be done — to overcome California’s budget and organizational challenges,” Performance Institute President Carl DeMaio said. “It also served as the first wide-scale opportunity for government managers to comment publicly on the Governor’s management initiatives.” The California Performance Review will submit recommendations to the Governor on June 30 and although no specific plans were confirmed, it is expected that the bureaucratic overhaul will contain recommendations to eliminate or consolidate some state boards, commissions and agencies, implement new technologies and processes and reduce the state work force mainly through attrition. "Every governor I've known has said there are too many boards and commissions -- let's get rid of them," Gutierrez said. But because "people are very comfortable with the status quo, it will be very difficult to change things." DeMaio spoke about the California Citizens’ Budget, which was published last summer and has played a substantial role in guiding management reform in California’s state government. The mock budget proposed a set of reforms that, if implemented, would close California’s $38 billion without major cuts in services employing performance-based management reforms. More importantly, the reforms recommended within the Citizen’s Budget can be applied to state governments nationwide. “What we have to do (now) is look to other states and figure out how they're doing their services and benchmarks, but over a long period of time, I could see California being the model for how to do large-scale government change," said DeMaio. "This would essentially be the textbook for how to do it."
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