Governing Maine in the 21st Century

A New GrowSmart Report on
Reshaping and Modernizing Maine's Public Sector

Charting Maine's Future, the landmark Brookings Institution study sponsored by GrowSmart Maine, said that in order to achieve sustainable prosperity for Maine people it is essential that we streamline and restructure Maine government, in order to meet our many obligations while constraining taxes and freeing up critical resources to grow the economy.

GrowSmart Maine is now actively exploring a follow-up study that will focus on that challenge of reinventing Maine governments, at all levels. The study will produce a ten-year action plan to build a modern, efficient and resourceful 21st century government, to provide better public services at lower costs and to free up the resources we need for other important investments.

THE CHALLENGES FACING MAINE

Taking a bird's-eye view of government in Maine.

• Many experts believe that we are in a new and unprecedented era of instability in government that has produced a 'permanent fiscal crisis'. That crisis is reflected in regular annual shortfalls in budgets, diminishing services and maintenance of critical infrastructures, as well as rising taxpayer frustration.
• Maine, like most states, will most likely see budget shortfalls for at least 8 of the next 10 years, leading to ongoing and unrelenting cuts, chaos and conflict.
  
• A historic and lasting shift is underway in how government is funded, and where public money is spent. An aging population's exploding health care costs are now consuming 1/3 of most states' revenues, and are projected to increase to as much as 50% of revenues within ten years. Seismic changes in energy costs are further accelerating the crisis.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

• Government is organized around a hundred-year old industrial bureaucratic model. It is a model which may be suitable enough for mass industrial production, but it is woefully unresponsive to the changing world in which we live. Top-down bureaucracies tend to be slow-moving, inefficient and unimaginative, and have a hard time adapting to or learning from either their employees or their customers.
• These inherent structural problems cannot be fixed through annual and incremental budget adjustments, reacting to ongoing shortfalls with across-the-board budget cuts, or by 'moving boxes around' in the organization chart. Something far more fundamental is required: we need to reexamine the essential structure and culture of our governments.
• Fundamental change will not simply happen without a comprehensive plan and a realistic timetable, including benchmarks, constant dialogue, and public pressure to move forward .

OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE

Mainers discussing state policy at the 2004 Summit

Although government is good at many things, it is not good at fundamentally reinventing itself. It is essential that reform be driven from outside government, by thoughtful people in all parts of the state, The real challenge is to fix these problems before frustrated citizens take matters into their own hands, in ways that could be fundamentally reactive and damaging.

Following the Brookings Report model, GrowSmart Maine will partner with nationally-respected and Maine-based experts who specialize in government, taxes and spending. If GrowSmart undertakes this project, we will again reach out to Maine leaders across the state for advice and guidance during the production of this report, including people who represent a cross-section of ideas, are independent thinkers, and have experience managing large organizations.

We will strive to produce the following:

1. An analysis which is driven by a solid base of credible data on our current situation, to help move the public discourse away from competing sets of self-serving studies, assumptions and anecdotes and toward comprehensive fact-based solutions;
2. A comparison of Maine's tax and spending levels to 8-10 other rural peer states to clarify whether Maine taxes and spending are different, how they are different, and why; and
3. A 10-year action plan, with measurable benchmarks, designed to transform how Maine manages public resources, how the various levels of government (state, local, education systems) can collaborate more effectively, and how to free resources in order to invest in long-term sustainable prosperity, as directed by Charting Maine's Future.

HOW THE REPORT WILL BE FUNDED AND MANAGED

As with the Brookings Report, this will be a citizens' effort relying on the support of private individuals, companies and foundations. The overall cost of the report, including outreach and implementation, will be in the $650,000 range, over a two-year interval.

A TIMETABLE FOR ACTION

We need the support of Mainers like you to complete this project - please contact Rich Livingston at 847-9275 ext. 306 if you are interested in making a pledge.

If the necessary funding can be secured, GrowSmart and its national partners will be in the field in the summer and fall of 2008, and will release the report in the spring of 2009. The release will be followed with a concerted outreach effort, in all parts of the state, to take the findings to Maine citizens and to stimulate a widespread public discussion of the report and its plan of action. This report, combined with the original Brookings study and other data, will form a body of work that can provide strategic direction to those seeking public office, and that will inform election campaigns and become part of the institutional culture of Maine government for generations to come.