Outgoing Codington County Commissioner Elmer Brinkman reflects on how increasing his local government workforce decreased costs:
When Brinkman first started, the commissioners met at 10 a.m. each week and the meetings went through the afternoon. He says much of the time was spent taking care of the county welfare situation such as listening to people ask for money after certain hardships.
That all changed with the hiring of a county welfare director, which freed up the commissioners to handle more pressing problems. It also allowed the meetings to start at 9 a.m. and run much shorter. A typical meeting now days lasts less than two hours.
“We were spending upward of $250,000 a year on medical and care of the poor kind of issues back then,” said Brinkman. “Since we’ve hired a welfare director, we’re just paying that salary and our total expenses are down so much that the investment in that employee has paid off big for the taxpayers” [Rich Remmers, “County Commissioner Brinkman to Take Part in His Final Meeting After 32 Consecutive Years in Position,” Watertown Public Opinion, 2016.12.26].
Codington County’s experience gets me thinking about the intentions of the President-Elect and Congressional Republicans to reduce the federal workforce. Under President Obama, the Executive Branch has employed roughly the same number of civilians, a bit more than two million, as under President Reagan (who actually hired more federal employees than President Carter did), even as the national population served by those employees has increased 40% since 1981.
One of the President-Elect’s proposals is a federal hiring freeze. Both President Carter and President Reagan tried that and got negative results:
A 1982 Government Accountability Office report found, for example, that the federal hiring freezes imposed under Presidents Carter and Reagan led to the loss of 445 IRS revenue agent and auditor staff, which resulted in government losses of tax revenue of more than 20 times the amount saved in salaries and benefits [Linda Miller, “Cutting Federal Workforce Not the Way to Eliminate Waste, Fraud and Abuse,” The Hill, 2016.12.19].
Cutting government sounds good, especially when the most public face of government is do-nothing Congress critters like South Dakota’s delegation. But the agencies that actually get things done—like the Postal Service, the FBI, the CDC, NASA, and the military—enjoy favorable ratings among the public. Firing government workers may sound good to a reality-TV host who has just one catch-phrase hammer in his tool box, but it will leave us with fewer professionals managing the national parks, food inspections, and Medicare payments that make Americans’ lives better, not to mention helping taxpayers save money.
Codington County’s welfare director shows us that investing in government workers can provide better service and save money. President Obama visited Codington County this year; perhaps President-Elect Trump should visit as well.
p.s.: Since 1940, the historical lows in Executive Branch employment have come under Democratic Presidents, Truman and Clinton.
Getting rid of IRS agents is keeping in line with wingnut wet dreams. They hated the FBI, too, until they found useful idiots were good at throwing elections their way.
What happened in Codington County. Did they hire a person and told him/her to rubber stamp every claim denied? You didn’t really elaborate on why they saved so much money.
Master Obama cut gubmint employment by 600000 or so I heard. Maybe it was through attrition and having wingnuts deny his federal judicial appointees.
That what I was thinking, MFI. If they just denied the claims of the poor and sick and call that savings …..?
Like mfi and Porter, I too wondered “why they saved so much money.”
I recall a time (the late 1970’s or early 1980’s) in Pennington County when our welfare (a/k/a County General Relief or County Poor Relief) director arbitrary denied help to folks in genuine need, often based on race or other irrelevant factors, and granted help to more attractive or favored individuals. This lead to numerous appeals of the director’s decision to the Pennington County Commissioners, who typically rubber stamped the directors denials.
These circumstances lead to state court appeals and ultimately to a federal civil rights lawsuit against Pennington County. The suit was settled when the County Commissioners agreed to adopt and abide by written public guidelines for eligibility thereby taking a serious step forward in controlling arbitrary and unlawful poor relief decisions.
Perhaps Codington County’s newly hired director developed guidelines and this saved the County appeal costs and litigation costs? I have trouble understanding, however, how a hiring a new director could reduce, or affect in any manner, the need for indigent help for local residents.
Right, BCB I also remember a time (the late 1960’s and early 1970’s) when Codington County’s welfare program was to do their best to get poor and sick people to move to Minnesota. It worked and South Dakota’s diversity has never recovered.
Alas, gentlemen, Brinkman and the WPO did not make clear how the money was saved. The article said nothing about actual amounts spent on indigent claims or amount of claims denied. The article focused on the time savings for the commission: commissioners spent less time reviewing indigent requests, had more time to focus on other issues, and had shorter meetings. Conceivably, you could figure the time saved by other county employees who had to sit through longer meetings and figure they were able to deliver more bang for the buck doing their jobs in their offices.
So Pennington County progressed, as involuntary as it was. Seems the story behind many nutters everywhere. They are forced to abide by the laws, but never seem to face any consequences for not having abided by the laws. god would say forgive them, it’ll teach them a lesson. god don’t know wingnuts.
I see, Cory. That sounds like some of those savings that comes from not spending money on something you’re wasting money on. It’s like when it’s said that bringing a big event to a city (e.g. The Democratic Convention in Denver for Obama) will bring in many millions. Or that drilling a borehole will bring millions to a little town. That was said when I lived in the oilfields of Wyoming in the 70’s. When it was over, there was little to be shown where the money went. Same old convenience store and café and rundown motels. Your use of “conceivably” is probably the truth. Just a conception of savings by Elmer on his way out.