Government in California is — Surprise! — Lean and Mean

I have an unusual background for someone in the public sector, having worked for a number of years in the private sector not just as a consultant, but actually in a private enterprise.  In the private sector, it is a gospel fact that government in California is bloated at all levels — too many employees doing too little work.  But like many gospel facts, it turns out that this one is untrue.

As an article in this week’s Economist (hardly a bastion of liberalism) notes, California ranks at the bottom of all states in terms of the number of state employees per 10,000 residents.  California has 108 state employees per 10,000 residents, third-lowest of all states; the national average is 143 per 10,000.  Even when local government employees (including schools) are included, California still ranks ninth lowest in the country.

These figures belie the prevailing belief of an out-of-control public sector.  In fact, arguably the opposite is true — there are not enough public employees to carry out the tasks imposed upon them by the legislature.  It loves to adopt laws in order to give its various constituents what they want, but it does not have the means to pay the full costs of implementing those laws.  The result is a mess — a quagmire of rules and regulations that are either not enforced or are enforced haphazardly, and common public institutions (such as the DMV) that appear to the public to be incapable of effectively carrying out their basic functions.  This adds fuel to the conservative mantra that the public sector is inept and incompetent, in turn reducing public support for our public institutions, a vicious cycle.

Solutions to the problem are all politically untenable.  Raising taxes to appropriately fund the public sector will not fly with conservative.  The other solution — sensibly reducing the number of laws and regulations to focus on those of critical importance — won’t fly with interest groups on left, each of whom will wail about the harm that would be caused by rolling back crucial protections for its particular constituency.

In my view, what’s needed is a bit of both.  Regulatory reform, combined with tax increases to support programs having broad public support, would be a first step to repairing our public institutions.  Impossible in the current political climate, but if the Open Primary Initiative and redistricting reform are successful, perhaps some day a more moderate legislature might make some headway.  On verra.

In the meantime, the next time someone raves on about California’s bloated public sector, remember … it just isn’t so.

Categories: Politics

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