Concerned about deteriorating tax revenues, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is putting a freeze on state hiring — and may consider more layoffs, reports Jeff Schapiro with the Times-Dispatch. “Anything is possible; everything is on the table,” Kaine press secretary Gordon Hickey said of firings, which have been limited to less than 100 so far.
By way of background, the number of state employees classified as “General Funded” (which, I presume, means funded by the General Fund, which excludes university employees and other groups over which the governor has little authority) stood at 39,420 in Jan. 2006, when Kaine became governor. By Nov. 2007, the number had risen to 40,788 — an increase of 3.5 percent in note-quite two years.
Given the surge in state spending, that increase in employee count doesn’t sound unreasonable. On the other hand, much of that surge was programmatic — spending on state aid to schools, Medicaid and the like, which should not take many more employees to administer. Also, the increase in the number of state employees should be compared to employment trends among large organizations in the private sector. I can’t readily find any productivity numbers for the service sector, but my sense is that most service-sector companies the size of the Commonwealth of Virginia are reducing employee count, not raising it.
Admittedly, the productivity (or lack of it) of the state workforce cannot be laid exclusively at the feet of Tim Kaine, who inherited an organizational culture that, for many reasons including oversight by the General Assembly, is highly resistant to change. But it is appropriate at this moment of Virginia’s fiscal history to ask: Where are the productivity gains promised by the reorganization of the state’s IT functions? In theory, Virginia is supposed to be saving lots of money on IT spending and equipping its employees to do their jobs more productively. Is that happening?
How is the Virginia Information Technologies Agency working out? Is it over the hump in its difficult reorganization? Is its quasi-independence from the executive branch proving to be a help or a hindrance? Is the contracting out of major functions to the private sector creating the promised benefits?
Inquiring minds want to know.