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"Washington Works" implements  state's competitive government

  The State of Washington is quietly undergoing a revolution in the way it does business. The enabling legislation, titled the Personal System Reform Act (PSRA), capitalizes on key elements of former Mayor Stephen Goldsmith's Indianapolis reforms of the 1990s.
  Beginning in July 2005, no longer will it be assumed that a government service can be done better by the government's incumbent workforce.
  With few exceptions (such as policing), most departments and jobs being performed today by Washington State employees will become subject of the very real possibility that a private company may perform the work. A key element to successful competition is in the plan's allowance of and assistance for the current employees doing the traditional workload in question to form their own "Business Units" to compete against private bidders.
  In addition, there are timelines to give the Business Units time to develop, as well as a streamlining of the processes currently in place. This is felt necessary in order to help untangle many bureaucratic stumbling blocks that would otherwise discourage a competitive dynamic from emerging.
  Nationally, it is said that under the true competitive model--in which unions may also compete for work--that the average cost of a department's work is reduced by 30%. Unions workers retain 70-80% of the work.
   Though Mayor Goldsmith is a Republican, the Indianapolis model was adopted by former Democratic Mayor of Philadelphia (and former Democratic National Chair) Ed Rendell.  His efforts in this initiative at the time helped turn Philadelphia around from near bankruptcy. Rendell is now Governor of Pennsylvania.
  
  As this process moves forward, look to ABCGov.com for updates, exclusive interviews with key legislators and members of the Governor's staff, as well as outsiders' critiques of the ongoing efforts of this major initiative to de-bureaucratize Washington.
► Washington Works Website

Dept. of Fish & Wildlife pioneers ABC style budget

  To our knowledge, the first ABC style budget at a Pacific NW region state's department level continues to go forward at Washington's Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.
  The ongoing work in progress was funded by the Legislature and mandated to have an Activity-Based Budget by last January 1.
  It was the idea of the Department's Budget Director, Jim Lux to find a means to better justify its spending and the departments real needs. He explains that during a 1998 financial crisis, the department was being cut in terms of real dollars. Lux felt there should be a better way.
   Lux told us last summer that the department has thus far identified 290 specific tasks the agency performs. Those were then grouped into 33 total agency level activities.
  In 1998, the agency had brought in consultants to help clarify its budget. By early 2000, the result of going to the legislature with the budget study, was funding for the ABC project.
  ABC became a mandate of the last session's major appropriation bill, Senate Bill 5404..
  The program now has been reviewed by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC). Two volumes in Adobe Acrobat format present a look at Fish and Wildlife. They are linked below and in Adobe PDF format:

► Activity and Cost information sorted by fish specie groups and framework for understanding the activities and related expenditures  (PDF)

The place to see the real-time legislative review of the Washington legislature in action is online.
  You can track each bill, get a concise summary, see the exact votes of each legislator, find the updated count of the number of bills introduced and passed, and it's completely searchable. Go there.