“Government programs once launched never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.”Ronald Reagan
| TODAY, BUSINESSES ARE FLATTENING THEIR ORGANIZATIONS AND USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY. IN CONTRAST, CALIFORNIA STATE GOVERNMENT IS AN ARCHIPELAGO OF ISOLATED ISLAND DEPARTMENTS WITH OVERLAPPING AND DUPLICATIVE FUNCTIONS. |
The state’s complex and incoherent organizational structure undermines accountability. With more than 300 boards and commissions, 11 agencies and 79 departments there are overlapping, duplicative and conflicting assignments.
Government is a maze. Only insiders and special interest groups can navigate the current structure.
Common administrative services are fragmented and duplicated. Agencies and departments have redundant administrative support functions which wastes hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Bureaucracy works against itself instead of for the citizens. Bureaucratic paperwork and internal conflicts come first. Quality of service delivery is not job one.
One of the first problems Governor Schwarzenegger noted when he took office was California’s cumbersome bureaucracy. Today, businesses are flattening their organizations and using information technology to improve productivity. In contrast, California state government is an archipelago of isolated island departments with overlapping and duplicative functions.
The state’s organizational structure simply does not mirror the dynamics of the state's innovative and visionary legacy. Instead of serving the people, it is weighted down by the bloat of its own processes and procedures. It is bureaucracy at its worst—costly, inefficient and unaccountable to the people.
Over the years, numerous agencies, departments, divisions, bureaus and commissions have been established in the Executive Branch. As organizational entities and programs have been added, the state’s organization has become bloated, confusing and frustrating to people both inside and outside government.
The Legislature also has assigned hundreds of individual programs to the Executive Branch. Many of these assignments may have made sense at the time or in the single context in which they developed, but taken together, they drain the efficiency of the government as well as the taxpayers’ pocketbooks.
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Prescription for Change
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These additions and compromises have resulted in a government that only makes sense to the special interests—the experts on getting things done within the maze of the bureaucracy. Departments and programs have been designed for the convenience of government and the bureaucracy, not for the convenience of the people.
| DEPARTMENTS AND PROGRAMS HAVE BEEN DESIGNED FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF GOVERNMENT AND THE BUREAUCRACY, NOT FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF THE PEOPLE. |
Departments and programs must be reoriented with the people of California in mind.
Today, our state government is not structured in the best way to do the job entrusted to it by the people. A simple review of its current organization shows a bewildering array of agencies and departments—an inefficient patchwork that promotes redundant missions and wastes precious taxpayer dollars (Exhibit 13). California’s Executive Branch is currently composed of:
CALIFORNIA STATE GOVERNMENT - CURRENT ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
There are many boards and commissions that are not accountable to the people and serve no pressing public need. California’s complex organizational web has such a large reporting structure that it is difficult to focus on strategically important information and initiatives or to assess program performance and productivity.
The problems created by the current organizational structure can be found in every corner of the government, but three examples illustrate the need for change. In this regard, it is useful to look at health and human services, education and business licensing—areas that collectively touch the majority of Californians in one way or another.
California’s Health and Human Service Agency is a maze of overlapping and confusing programs. Often people do not know where to turn for help, or they must negotiate a complex bureaucracy that wastes time and money and diminishes the dignity of those in need of assistance. Often they find dedicated state workers who want to help, but are handcuffed by the unyielding system in which they work.
Businesses involved in health or community care are forced to contact different entities to become licensed. There are, for example, two different departments with responsibility for nutrition. Health care data are collected by multiple departments within the agency and stored in 60 different computerized systems, making a real understanding of the success or failure of programs impossible. Within this fractured system, it is difficult for even the best-intentioned people to coordinate programs and activities.
Currently, separate eligibility determinations are made for food stamps, the Medi-Cal and the CalWORKs programs. These programs touch a huge number of Californians. In fact, they touch a huge number of the same Californians. Reorganizing and coordinating this area of government is imperative, so that those in need are helped, not harmed by a system designed to offer assistance.
| THE STATE, AS IN MANY STATES, MUST FORGE A CLEARER CONNECTION BETWEEN EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE PREPARATION. IN THE 21ST CENTURY, THE LINK BETWEEN A SUCCESSFUL ECONOMY AND LIFETIME LEARNING IS INESCAPABLE. |
Much the same story exists in education. Here, the organizational problems are two-fold. First, the state has no central oversight over the public school and higher education systems. The second problem is that the state, as in many states, must forge a clearer connection between education and workforce preparation. In the 21st century, the link between a successful economy and lifetime learning is inescapable. The state has made attempts, but the organization of its education and workforce programs does not provide what California needs if it is to be a global leader in the coming decades.
Today, more than 20 state entities are responsible for education and workforce preparation policy. Coordination to provide effective policy development for education is impossible. The system tragically wastes money which should be spent in the classroom.
Education policy-making is a maze. California has a State Board of Education, a Superintendent of Public Instruction and a Secretary of Education. The state’s college and university systems are largely autonomous. They lack overall coordination. The state’s community colleges have a central role in the training that many Californians receive to succeed in the 21st century economy. Many of the courses offered at community colleges, however, are not based on any current analysis of labor force needs. The community college system does not project future employment trends to ensure California has an adequately trained workforce capable of meeting industry’s needs in the future.
A final example of the state’s organizational problems is business and professional licensing. The state’s list of business and professional licenses takes up 15 single-spaced pages, listing hundreds of required licenses, permits and certifications. Statutes and regulations run into thousands of pages. Under these circumstances, people seeking to obtain a license, or consumers trying to lodge a complaint about a problem, do not know where to turn.
Dozens of boards and commissions are responsible for regulating particular professions. Many are small and virtually all have overlapping and duplicative administrative processes, because many aspects of the licensing process are common to all programs. Moreover, with small agencies focused only on one business or profession, there is always the risk that the board will be “captured” by the industry it should be regulating, accepting lax standards instead of protecting consumers.
California can do better. The state can eliminate the overlap among programs. It can consolidate administrative functions and save money. It can make better use of state employees’ time and energy. It can make the government more understandable to its citizens and better designed to meet their needs.
None of this will be accomplished though, through stopgap measures and half-hearted attempts at coordination. We have to do what the Governor suggested in his State of the State address—we have to blow up the boxes. We have to reorganize the government from top to bottom.
Action:The organization of California state government should be overhauled to make it more efficient and streamlined to unleash the productivity of its workforce.
| DOZENS OF BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR REGULATING PARTICULAR PROFESSIONS. MANY ARE SMALL AND VIRTUALLY ALL HAVE OVERLAPPING AND DUPLICATIVE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESSES, BECAUSE MANY ASPECTS OF THE LICENSING PROCESS ARE COMMON TO ALL PROGRAMS. |
The goal of this restructuring is to realign functions into clearer organizational clusters and to eliminate as much overlap and duplication as possible. The proposed new organizational framework is shown in Exhibit 14. It realigns the many existing agencies and departments into 11 integrated departments and eliminates more than 100 boards and commissions so that state programs better serve the people of California.
This organizational framework restructures government to meet the demands of modern California by aligning functions as closely as possible according to the major purposes of state government. It will promote accountability and improve productivity by facilitating results-based management.
The plan organizes programs into logical departments tied by function and client population. It eliminates situations in which more than one cabinet officer is responsible for similar or duplicative programs. By clarifying responsibilities and lines of authority, government can more effectively serve the intended beneficiaries of the state’s services without creating frustrating mazes for our citizens to negotiate.
STATE OF CALIFORNIA PROPOSED ORGANIZATION
Reorganizing California state government also will save taxpayer’s dollars. We have a government today that wastes money through overlap, duplication and systemic inefficiency. In today’s global economy, a new government structure will allow for the evaluation of all service delivery methods to ensure cost-effectiveness. With a more efficient structure and organization for delivering services, the overall cost of government will be reduced significantly.