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What Maine Must Do
12 Steps toward Accountable Government
Running for Governor is as big a challenge as may exist in the state of Maine. No one should attempt it without clear ideas about what to do in exchange for the public's trust. Here are twelve things that I would stand for if that trust were placed in me.
- Human Services: Human services is now the dominant business of state government, much of it carried out by a network of private contractors relying on public funds. Within DHHS, we need new systems of management with accountability for every bureau. We must pay for performance. We must measure outcomes in preference to outputs.
We can start by changing the skill sets of those whose job it is to achieve cost effective, clearly identified goals for human service clients. We need more managers with business training and talent. "Accountability," "value added" and "cost-benefit" must be part of the Department's daily vocabulary.
Portland is host to Unum-Provident, the largest writer of private disability insurance in America. DHHS is the largest insurer for Maine's dependent citizens. Does anyone from Unum-Provident ever go to work for DHHS or vice versa? Why shouldn't the talent at DHHS be interchangeable with that of the private sector?
- K-12 Education: The second biggest business of state government is the funding of K-12 education. Maine has been testing 4th, 8th and 11th grade students annually since 1984. We have published learning standards since 1996. Yet not one student has suffered a consequence for failing to perform. Nor has any teacher yet been rewarded for improving students. Without rewards and consequences the system lacks meaning.
Accountability in education must be based on annually measured student gains. We can start by implementing clear standards with uniform assessments that students must take seriously as a requirement for their own success. The system must run on real time analysis with prompt remediation. That we cannot measure everything should not lead us to measure nothing.
Maine should also extend the K-12 school year by a week and lengthen the school day to insert time for daily physical exercise, for supervised homework and for professional development among teachers.
- Public Pensions: Maine's employment system for teachers and state employees is horribly calcified. Those who enter service at age 22 are stuck in place until 62. No where else in today's world do we expect people to do the same thing for 40 years. All new employees and teachers should have portable pensions with Social Security at its base supplemented by defined benefits. This will avoid the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision, federal laws that are costly to many of Maine's public retirees.
Future members should be free to move in and out of state service without penalty for breaking longevity. The spirit of service among teachers and state employees must be constantly replenished with fresh entrees from the private sector; while those who have grown stale in public jobs should be free to take their talents elsewhere.
- Debt: Maine's financial structure is tottering because of promises it cannot keep. The state's two largest debts are $3 billion owed for pensions and $1.2 billion owed to fund retiree health benefits. The Baldacci administration expanded the state's guarantee for retiree insurance while inconsistently killing a reserve account created under Governor King to help meet the debt. Every man, woman and little child in Maine has $3230 on his credit card to pay these two bills. Maine has no future without bringing such staggering burdens under control.
Until these are reduced to manageable proportions, we should abandon bonds as a routine way to fund recurring capital improvements. If we free ourselves of bonded debt by finding present money for capital needs, we will eliminate debt service and save the interest. Our motto should be, "Pay as you go or do without."
- Public Choices: Instead of spoon-feeding the public a pabulum of bonds that lack funding sources to support them, Augusta should trust the public to help answer some of the state's difficult questions. Why not send out to public referendum some well-defined choices on issues like the following:
- the annual tradeoff between highway improvements and gas taxes;
- whether to broaden the sales tax to reduce income taxes;
- finding revenue to fund the Land for Maine's Future; and
- whether to grant flexibility to towns to decide on the homestead exemption and alternatives to the property tax.
- Medicaid: So long as Medicaid is free, it will be abused. So long as it is supplied without condition, it will be less effective to improve health. Medicaid should be more demanding of its customers and more creative with its providers. Federal law permits the collection of higher premiums and co-pays than Maine presently charges. Where allowed by law, Maine should ration non-essential benefits, particularly for patients who refuse to manage their own health or who abuse the privilege of care.
When DHHS has finally re-established a functioning computerized payment system, we should bring back the performance based incentives that were once used to reward primary care physicians. We should create similar incentives for hospitals and other providers.
- Health Care: We must maximize health care gains within available resources. Dirigo Health should create a high risk pool with disease management features to bring Maine's market to life while preserving insurance access through "guaranteed issue" for all Maine people.
Create a statewide interactive and secure medical information technology system to render medical records of all Maine citizens immediately and reliably available whenever and wherever they are needed. Begin by requiring everone on Medicaid to have an electronic medical record.
Instead of struggling to provide so many with free or subsidized insurance, use what resources we have to extend the reach of public health. As examples:
- Deliver more care directly to children through school based health clinics;
- Open affordable dental clinics in which patients contribute to the cost of their own care;
- Expand Rural Health Centers and other medical facilities where patients pay a sliding scale fee;
- Strengthen and extend the public health mission of regional hospitals; remove the risk of being shut down by giving them more work to do; and
- Support such initiatives with taxes or fees that discourage detrimental health practices.
- Tax favoritism: Cease granting whimsical favors through the tax code to businesses that are here today and gone tomorrow. Reinforce broader support for Maine's traditional sources of economic strength: agriculture, fishing, tourism, forest products, manufacturing, and guided sports. We might, for example, require all tax supported institutions to purchase produce from local farms.
- Duplicate services: Maine can no longer afford duplicate services in such fields as police and fire protection. Maine taxpayers are supporting three separate layers of law enforcement: state police, county sheriffs and local police -- plus IF&W, Marine Patrol, corrections, and forest wardens. We must win the turf battles necessary to consolidate some of these worthy but overlapping services.
- Schools & school districts: Small schools are essential to preserve neighborhoods and communities, but small districts are not. Maine's success in consolidating districts ended 36 years ago when the last SAD was formed. We still have 286 school units and 211 separate teacher contracts. If we had only one for each of Maine's 31 labor market areas, both sides could negotiate with greater fairness and efficiency. Consolidation is unpleasant but inevitable in the face of escalating costs. Our small town and neighborhood schools can best be protected by lifting administrative burdens from their backs.
- Infrastructure: A hidden way of running up debt is to neglect capital improvements and repairs. 1048 bridges under DOT jurisdiction, about 38% of the total, are more than 50 years old. Highway repair is not keeping up with deterioration. Our high schools built during the consolidation era of the 1960's are over 40 years old. The economy of rural Maine is paralyzed by 2000 miles of posted roads in mud season, by cell phone voids along main roads and by lack of wireless and broadband.
We need to remember basics when allocating scarce revenues. This means bridges, roads and buildings need our attention. Each year, the DOT should rebuild at least 100 miles of posted state roads until posting is a thing of the past. As for cell phones and broadband, the companies who offer the service should extend service fully or restrict their operating privileges in favor of those who will.
- Federal dependency: Maine cannot depend on federal funds for help. Our rates of reimbursement for Medicare are lower than most other states and have been since Medicare was invented in 1965. Our federal match rates for Medicaid were reduced in 2003 and 2005. Maine is last in New England for funding per mile of federal aid roads. Maine gets back less in federal highway taxes than it sends to Washington. The Department of Defense closed Loring, will now close Brunswick and threatens Bath. No matter how large our problems, Maine has little choice but to control our own debt, teach ourselves self-reliance and develop strategies for surviving on our own.
Conclusion
Maine deserves a government as good as the one we pay for -- not the best that money can buy but the best we can afford within our means. To succeed, we must confront our weaknesses with greater candor and exploit our strengths with greater insight. Because ours is a small state without extreme divisions, we can be nimble; we can be quick; and we can leap over these candlesticks.
Peter Mills
Cornville home 474-3821 Skowhegan office 474-3324
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