Lincoln – For a person like me, who worked several years in the Nebraska State Capitol trying to provide efficient, honest, scandal-free state government, the headlines of late have been saddening.
An Omaha World-Herald headline put it this way: "Government Waste Continues to Mount." The newspaper went on to describe procurement lapses in the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) that "wound up wasting enormous sums of money."
A Lincoln Journal-Star headline offered a different example, referring to DAS accounting: "Auditor Cites $21 Billion in Errors."
And DAS is not the only state agency not meeting its responsibilities, as pointed out by a leading Omaha citizen in her op-ed about the regulatory failures that have resulted in a dangerous public health crisis in Mead: "Nebraska's 'Flint Moment' Has Arrived."
"Into the life of every office worker, some rain must fall... and often that rain takes the form of the latest jackass fad that your management latched onto. In most cases, a new management fad means endless meetings, new buzzwords for the office toadies, and extra work that ends up either driving you crazy or your company out of business."
Wasted time and wasted effort. According to one quality control expert quoted in Fortune magazine, "of 58 large companies that have announced Six Sigma programs, 91 percent have trailed the S&P 500 since."
What kind of state government culture leads to such low expectations and shoddy performance by its key agencies? I went on the DAS webpage to look for answers. I once led the department so I know something about it.
Compared to my years at DAS, there are now several senior positions with job titles that suggest the agency has succumbed to management fads rather than tending to business. The mission statement of the department is a muddle, quite untethered to the department's statutory authorization and purpose.
Most disconcerting — and amusing were the problems not so serious — is the adoption of a management fad that ranks number one in a rundown of "the eight stupidest management fads of all time." If you have ever worked in a bureaucracy, you know this to be all too true:
When I was at DAS, we kept the fads at bay. One year it was MBO, "Management by Objective"; another year it was ZBB, "Zero Based Budgeting." We thought that by putting our noses to the grindstone and doing our statutory duties conscientiously we would do better than the latest management scheme and all its foofaraw.
The "Six Sigma" fad came along after I left the department. It now dominates the DAS webpage and is the preoccupation of DAS management. There is even a room in the state capitol building devoted to cultish Six Sigma belts, badges, and incantations.*
Results, according to those who follow fads:
One Nebraska citizen has noted that newspaper articles about waste and scandal often neglect to name the individuals responsible for the messes they create, as if "government waste" simply happens and no one is to be held accountable. That is also a departure from years gone by, when agency directors would be expected to take responsibility publicly and, if necessary, heads would roll.
That was also a time when agency directors were expected not to be involved in partisan politics. Now the DAS director is also the head of his county's political party and engages in partisan activities. In years gone by, agency directors were also expected to be above the influence of political campaign contributions. Now, it is no coincidence that each of the procurement and public health messes noted above have a connection to campaign contributions. It is pay-to-play.
A few years ago, I was asked by authors Chuck Pallesen and Sam Van Pelt to recall, for their book Big Jim Exon, my days serving in state government. One anecdote I was eager to share (you can read it on page 150) was about a call I once received from a Lincoln newspaper reporter. He wanted to know of any state government accomplishments during my years of service when Exon was governor. (He was an Exon critic.) I gave him a list, but at the top of it I put the fact that under Exon there had been eight years of government without notable waste and scandal. He replied that in Nebraska, that's easy — "we're not New Jersey." I disagreed, stating that waste and scandal-free government doesn't happen on its own.
Enough of state government by fad and aphorism, with its disastrous results and lack of accountability. The only way to get out of these messes is by hard work from dedicated employees and by leaders who are willing to be accountable to the people they are supposed to serve, and not to those who put partisan politics above the public interest.
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* Although I have no first-hand knowledge of what discussions transpire in rooms like these, I'd not be surprised to learn that the word "coach" is in vogue, as in "procurement coaches" and maybe even "accounting coaches," to raise fad above function. We know from published emails that one department, charged with protecting the public health, had "compliance coaches" rather than enforcement officials. Part of those coaches' jobs was to assure that failure to comply would not result in punishment. This approach may have been responsible for a state inspector at Mead (Nebraska's 'Flint') explaining that violations there were by just "hard-working people trying to make a living."
