Governing Magazine just published a management report card on the fifty states. For California, there’s good news and bad news. First, the bad news: we get a C minus—tied with Alabama for worst in the class. Now, the good news: when we order double lattes at Starbucks in this state, we don’t get asked, “shall I leave some room for grits?” Joking aside, this is not a report card you want to bring home to mom and dad, Governor Schwarzenegger.
The report on each state is in Governing Magazine’s February issue. For those of you who got through college on Cliff Notes, let me ruin the suspense by revealing that Utah and Virginia got the highest marks: A minus. If Virginia Governor Mark Warner runs for president, as many Democrats would like him to do, you’ll hear more about how Virginia earned good grades. They have six-year budget forecasts and “performance contracts” that Warner initiated with each of his 10 cabinet members and about 100 agency heads.
The study is a year long effort funded by the Pew Charitable Trust. Each year, they provide report cards on a different level of government.
Cities got their grades in 2000. If you’re the City of San Jose, don’t expect that you’ll be staying up late watching TV past your bedtime. San Jose got a C plus. The evaluation of 35 cities across the nation was done in 1999, the first year of the Gonzales administration. So, it doesn’t reflect the performance of the current leadership. Next year’s report will. In the last study, Phoenix was the best managed city in the nation with an A. Austin, Texas was runner up with an A minus.
Counties got their grades in 2002. Santa Clara County also got a C plus. Since the study’s completion, Pete Kutras took over as County Executive so it’s too early to say that anyone needs to go to summer school.
I don’t really want to push my state, city, or county to get the grades needed to get into an Ivy League grad school, but it would be nice if they would perform well enough to justify the tuition and/or the costs of books.
The report speaks for itself …
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: C
San Jose’s information technology is relatively weak, especially in the financial area. Budgeting and accounting aren’t integrated, so manual intervention is required to make the two systems work together. And financial management isn’t integrated with the city’s new human resources system.
Although San Jose has made a concerted effort to avoid stovepiped and inconsistent information systems, some departments continue to function autonomously, including streets and traffic, the redevelopment agency, and parks and recreation.
Meanwhile, if there’s political benefit to an IT investment — for example, if it will benefit a particular council member’s district — “we get stuff shoved down our throat,” says Jon Walton, deputy director of the information technology department.
Don’t know much about Mark Warner but if he can do a good job in a state like Virginia he knows how to govern rather than running to the ballot box for everything.
Can we trade Arnold for Mark Warner?
A trade might be possible. With the borrowing record that Arnold has, we’ll probably have to throw in a couple of high draft picks to get Warner. In any case the trade would be worth it.
Maybe we’ll all get Warner:
http://warner2008.blogspot.com/
Yeah it must be Arnold. Couldn’t have anything to do with the democratic nutjobs from the bay area that we have in our legislature.
Term limits was a good start – redistricting will be another good step.
The big question:
Can San Jose do well enough to get into San Jose State?
Term limits is the cause of our nutty legislature. It is not that they are bad, just inexperienced.
Throw in Arnold and it is Amateur Hour. Not that he is bad, just inexperienced.
Governing isn’t as easy as people think, a knowledge of history, issues, and process actually comes in handy. But after six years, just as you are getting the hang of things, you are out. Californians are getting the government they deserve.
Arnold’s problem is that he likes be liked. Thus he backtracks on abolishing the State Commissions, follows staff advice on appointments, makes the same deals Gray would have made to balance the budget, breaks the same deals Gray would have broke to balance the budget and he wonders why his numbers are beginning to slip.
Here is some unsolicited advice for Arnold, listen to you wife.
Sounds like grade inflation to me. A “C,” after all, used to imply getting by, as in “average.” We’re not average. We’re failing. And let’s quit pointing fingers, folks. Politicians don’t sneak into office while no one’s looking. We vote to put them there. So, just who is it that’s failing on that score?
Yea, let’s not blame everything on Arnold or Bush for that matter. What about our county and city officials? They hold responsibility too other than saying “They took away our funds – if only we had that money we could do great things…” What happened when we did have the money?? I am betting that SJ gets put on academic probation next report card!
Would any governor in recent memory take on the state employees union or cross the teachers union? How about trying to address the severely gerrymandered districts that have given us such a dysfunctional legislature? Heard anyone besides Arnold lately propose such a wacky idea as indexing state spending to population growth?
This state is broken. Give the man credit for trying to fix the systemic problems that have put this state in the dumper.
Last year Arnie made nice with the Unions to balance the budget. This year he breaks his deal and now, he’s taking them on?
Check his drop in the polls. Arnie is doing everything he said he would not do, including collecting money from special interests.
He just gave a special interest tax break to Hollywood and he backs Bush, who won’t return his calls.
It is easy to call for redistricting when your party is in the minority. The “will” of the people have left both the Guv and the legislature little discretion over the budget. He flip-flopped on ending the gross number of State Commissions and Commissioners who are sucking money for no reason.
Where is the reform? Oh yeah, he wants to make the state more Republican. Sounds like politics as usual to me.
It seems that you’ve already forgotten what happened to our old friends Gray and Cruz. You should ask them what they think Arnold’s chances are for getting all his props through this fall?
Politics as usual is why this state is so out of step with the rest of the nation.
Politics as usual is why this state is getting 80 cents on every tax dollar we pay in.
The politics as usual ankle biters in the legislature lose this fall, Arnold (and the state) win the day.
Thanks for making my point. Politics as usual does not work.
I would like to see Arnold succeed in changing the way things are done. But the polls show his “reform” measures are neither bipartisan or reform.
The voters believe he is a captive of special interests. If he wants real reform he needs to bring everyone to the table, make it bipartisan and move forward.
Otherwise, he might as well be Gray.
Frank, you sound like a guy who would enjoy life more in a sleepy town in an asleep-at-the-wheel red state. Arnold goes and hands the state of Ohio—and thus the election—over to Bush, but won’t ask for a dime in return when it was Bush’s deaf ear during the Enron-induced raid on California’s budget that put this state over the edge. And that whole deregulation thing with the power industry was your boy Pete Wilson’s idea. Bush is bankrupting the country and Arnold is behind him all the way. He should be asking for something in return for single handedly securing four more years of this DC insanity. In fact, he owes it to the people of California considering he facilitated an outcome in November that the voters here decisively disagreed with.
Arnold gives 1 speech for Bush and singlehandedly gives Bush the presidency. Now that’s power!
Have another glass of blue kool-aid.
Uh, excuse me, but that was Arnold handing out the red kool-aid in Ohio and everbody got drunk on it, obviously.
But this blog isn’t about partisan swipes so maybe we can exclude those hot button remarks going forward?
>> But this blog isn’t about partisan swipes so maybe we can exclude those hot button remarks going forward?
Nicely put, couldn’t agree more.
Back to the topic – does anyone know if our city managers go to places that are getting the high marks to see what they’re doing right?
Thanks.