Wednesday, January 11, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Looking
Outward
Dan Glode
Columnist
Government is
not a business
We are not to expect per-
fection in this world; but
mankind, in modern times,
have apparently made some
progress in the science of
government.
— George Washington,
letter to the Marquis de
Lafayette, Feb. 7, 1788
Way back before the dawn
of time, in the last century, I
was working in the valley
for the Children’s Services
Division (CSD). That agency
is now called DHS. It was
the 1970s and I was working
as a protective service social
worker. One difficult duty I
had was to assess reports of
child abuse, conduct inves-
tigations with law enforce-
ment and make an evalua-
tion/assessment as to whether
the child should be removed
from the home and/or require
the family to accept family
support services.
It was certainly where
the rubber meets the road in
terms of government intru-
sion into the lives of families.
If we had to remove the child
or mandate services the court
intervened and the state took
over. Having the state take
over in family matters was
— and is — a big deal.
I doubt even the most
conservative of you out
there would say the govern-
ment has no right to remove
a child from a clearly abu-
sive situation. And all would
agree this is not a decision
that should be made in haste
or without proper delibera-
tion, as the consequences of
making a mistake could have
disastrous consequences for a
child.
These have been some of
my most difficult decisions I
have had to make on behalf
of others. There are some
black-and-white, very clear
cases for sure, but oftentimes
the decisions are made in a
gray cloud where evidence
is certainly needed and often
many factors come into play.
The legal standard of “best
interests of the child” is not
a bright line. I have a tre-
mendous amount of respect
for the men and women who
have to make these tortured
judgments day in and day
out.
During this period, many
in state government believed
that state agencies should be
run by executives from the
private sector, including my
agency. The prevailing idea
du jour was that people in
business have the most rele-
vant experience in efficiency,
organization and cost-effec-
tiveness. Those skills were
assumed to be transferable.
It was also assumed that
government managers were
inefficient, self-serving and
entrenched.
Government, many
thought, was bloated and
those who ran it were tedious
and incompetent. The reason-
ing went that if private-sector
managers were put in posi-
tions of authority govern-
ment would be a well-oiled
machine which could carry
out the public’s affairs with
diligence and frugality. This
reasoning was misguided in
the 1970s and it certainly is
now, as we usher in the era
of the businessman presi-
dent. Looks like people are
embracing this hogwash
again. I guess you can fool
some of the people all the
time.
The business I was in was
obviously one which did not
make a profit, and people
who were in the “widget-
making” business (those who
now lead the agency) had no
idea of what child protective
services and family resto-
ration were. But, hey, they
did love their numbers so
since they had no clue what
was going on they wanted to
develop a system of quanti-
fying the services that were
provided to children and
families.
Give them numbers and
columns and they were
happy. So began the genesis
of one kind of management
information system after
another. They were diffi-
cult, time-consuming and
completely inaccurate in the
way they described the real
world. They tried to quan-
tify that which could not be
quantified.
It became a tarpit from
which the agency still has not
recovered.
Government is not a busi-
ness. It’s complex and oper-
ates with a different set of
rules, precepts, laws, organi-
zation and mandates. Oil and
water. Is it expensive? Yes,
you bet it is. Roads, jails,
court systems, needed regu-
lators, justice, police, fire,
schools, universities, aviation
regulation, war, weapons,
pensions, veteran’s benefits,
disability assistance, water,
sewer and every other thing
you can think of that govern-
ment does for you are not
cheap.
There are two prevailing
assumptions: 1. Business is
inherently more efficient than
government and the skill-set
for managers is higher than
that of government man-
agers, and 2. Government
workers are lazy and time-
wasters and their managers
are incompetent plodders.
Both assumptions are grossly
incorrect.
In my view business skill-
sets are not the same as those
needed for government and
are [not] necessarily transfer-
able; in fact, most likely not
transferable. Most govern-
ment workers and managers
work at least as hard as their
private-sector counterparts.
One of the current disasters
I will write about at another
time is the privatization of
prisons and jails. As you
want good management lead-
ership in the private sector,
you want it in public sector.
The best place to recruit for
the public sector is the public
sector.
Let’s not suggest George
Washington was wrong.
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