A prominent group comprised of current and former government officials, business leaders, organizational experts, and renowned academics have come up with 87 ideas to save state government $3.25 billion dollars in the coming fiscal year and even more in future years. It’s just in time to help the legislature through an upwards of $3.2 billion revenue shortfall in the new budget year.
The Government Cost Savings Task Force, organized by Florida TaxWatch, last week at a news conference released a report of its work, identifying productivity and efficiency improvements and other cost savings measures to change the way Florida government works, much of it in operational and administrative spending. It includes ideas to eliminate unnecessary duplication among government agencies.
“In good economic times, the legislature would come to town and argue over how to spend an additional billion dollars or if it had been a particularly good year for the economy, two or three billion dollars,” said Dominic M. Calabro, President and CEO of Florida TaxWatch, a non-partisan, non-profit taxpayer research institute and government watchdog. “No one was looking at the core $65 billion dollar budget. Well, we did.”
Ideas from the 125-page report include requiring that all state agencies use already negotiated state contracts offering goods and services at lower than normal prices ($200 million savings) and reducing the number of goods and services exempted from competitive bidding requirements ($50 million to $125 million savings). Other ideas include offering a temporary tax amnesty program ($100 million savings) and increasing penalties for Medicaid overbilling ($104 million savings).
“We focus on the ‘what’, not the ‘who’ of politics,” said Calabro. “And the hope is that our report will take political pressure off of the legislature to make the necessary changes in government operations. If these changes don’t happen this year and next, the state risks being in even greater financial trouble,” he
said.
More than a year in the making, the Task Force report is based on ideas from its members and other parties, including discussions with legislators, and legislative and agency staff. It builds on the success of cost saving recommendations TaxWatch made in January of 2009, of which the legislature passed nearly $800 million. Many pieces of proposed legislation this session were prompted by or encompass some of the Task Force recommendations.
Florida TaxWatch Chairman David Smith, a retired Chairman and CEO of PSS World Medical in Jacksonville who chaired the Task Force, said TaxWatch communicated these ideas to legislative leaders of both parties and their staffs in November, December and January and will continue to work with them to fully implement these ideas.
See the Full Report Here
