Anti-government waste commission proved the skeptics wrong

When the SAGE Commission started its work a year ago, Chairman Bruce James was optimistic, Carole Vilardo was hopeful, and David Goldwater was skeptical.

But midway through their two-year assignment on Gov. Jim Gibbons’ Spending and Government Efficiency Commission, all three believe their time wasn’t wasted.

Out of the 24 SAGE recommendations, nine were implemented, eight were rejected, four are under consideration by the governor, and three received no action.

The biggest victory was that the Legislature agreed to reduce costs at the Public Employees Retirement System and the Public Employees Benefits Program, at least for newcomers to the state system. Lawmakers didn’t go as far as the commission urged, but for the first time, some progress was made in reining in escalating costs.

Former Democratic Assemblyman Goldwater evaluated the commission. “If the objective was to find millions of dollars immediately to fill the budget hole, it was not successful. And that was the governor’s original intent, to find waste in state government.”

The 14 commissioners didn’t find $600 hammers or $900 toilet seats in the state government, for example. But the commission succeeded, Goldwater said, by disproving state government is bloated. “From that perspective, the SAGE Commission was successful,” Goldwater said. “At the end of the day, from my definition of success, we disarmed that stupid argument that goofy paper of yours uses.”

James put it more diplomatically. “As long as the programs exist that exist today and we structure it the way we do, there isn’t a lot of fat. That doesn’t mean that things cannot be organized and streamlined,” James said. “Without question, we have several redundancies in government; there are 170 entities in the executive branch, and many are overlapping.”

Both Goldwater and Vilardo, president of the Nevada Taxpayers Association, praised James for his leadership. (My blog tells you about his political future.) “I give Bruce credit. He sought unanimity on things. Almost everything was unanimous except for some of the reductions in pension and health benefits,” Goldwater said.

“SAGE helped elevate the conversation,” Vilardo said, referring to the retirement and health benefit reductions for new hires after Tuesday. She gave credit to the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce for actively lobbying for those cost-cutting ideas that public employee unions killed in prior sessions. With a floundering economy, this turned out to be the right idea at the right time.

In 1999, when times were better, Gov. Kenny Guinn appointed a cost-cutting committee. Just before the 2001 Legislature, the Fundamental Review of State Government submitted 65 suggestions to save $50 million by improving state efficiency. In the end, lawmakers approved ideas calculated to save $30 million.

James had no dollar estimate of how much money will be saved with the nine proposals approved and tweaked by the Legislature.

After the session, SAGE members agreed that they should have more actively lobbied legislators about the proposals. Instead, the commission made a conscious decision to leave the lobbying to Gibbons. But with the tension between lawmakers and the GOP governor, in retrospect, that was a mistake.

With another year to go, James said the next phase will focus on health care costs, ideas Gibbons can implement without legislative approval and four to six more solid suggestions for the 2011 session.

The other commissioners are Don Ahern, Barbara Smith Campbell, Bob Feldman, Bob Forbuss, Randy Garcia, Steve Greathouse, Steve Hill, Jan Jones, Howard Putnam, Jerome Snyder and James Thornton. They’re a pretty impressive group who don’t have time to waste and showed up at almost every monthly meeting, paying their own expenses and receiving no pay. There are three full-time, paid staff members.

At their June 24 meeting, James asked commissioners whether they thought the time they had spent on the commission had been worthwhile, whether they thought progress had been made and whether they were pleased with the results.

Yes, yes and yes, they all answered.

A year earlier, all agreed they were happy to give their time and pay their expenses, but they wanted to accomplish something.

Even if lawmakers didn’t go as far as SAGE commissioners wanted, the commissioners have made progress in saving you money, and they’re only half finished.

If Goldwater and Vilardo agree the SAGE Commission is worth their time that tells me the governor’s commission is worthwhile. And like Goldwater, I started as a skeptic.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison/.