Grading the States introduction THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT Report Card: Wyoming GOVERNOR Jim Geringer (Republican, elected 1994) LEGISLATURE House — 46 Republicans, 14 Democrats Senate — 20 Republicans, 10 Democrats FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: B- For three years in a row, through 1999, Wyoming’s budget estimates missed the mark pretty significantly — there wasn’t as much money coming in as there was supposed to be. Some of the rainy day fund had to be used to keep the budget balanced. Fortunately, the state was cautious in its approach to spending — which also came in under budgeted amounts — and so the fiscal difficulties were minimized. Careful attention to expenses is particularly important in Wyoming, which has a feast or famine financial environment based on mineral taxes, and hence on energy prices. Right now, with gas prices high, budgeters actually are having a relatively easy time. Flush revenues are enabling the state to refill its reserve funds. But for the future, Wyoming would be well served to develop some skill at long-term fiscal projection that it hasn’t had before. What the state does have is pretty good cost accounting. Managers are provided with training in this area and are encouraged to use it on the job. It seems to work: Cost accounting helped agencies, for example, to see that maintaining their own cars was more expensive than relying on a central motor fleet. CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: D Back in 1999, things looked rosier in Wyoming’s capital management arena. The state had a new capital budgeting process patterned after one in Minnesota. Then they discovered that Wyoming wasn’t Minnesota. And the differences between the two states meant that the secondhand system didn’t fit very well. Now efforts are being made to start over again, but it is taking rather a long time. One major problem is incomplete capital inventory. Up until now, the Division of General Services has been responsible for gathering this information. But the division has lacked funding to conduct the necessary facilities assessments on a regular basis, leading to missing and aged data. Even when the state knows what the problems are, it doesn’t always do much about them. Repairs and maintenance are forced to compete with ongoing construction projects for limited money, and as a result have been consistently underfunded. On the transportation side, preventive maintenance has been more of a focus. Although there is no maintenance funding set aside here either, the state has prioritized its spending in a sort of a triage strategy, putting money into preserving roads that are more heavily trafficked rather than throwing bigger dollars at pavement that is less traveled upon. HUMAN RESOURCES: C+ Wyoming’s state work force continues to be hampered by high turnover. This is an especially serious problem because the state doesn’t budget for benefits paid to departing employees, and agencies have to fund these costs from their own budgets. The result is they sometimes leave important positions vacant until they can afford to pay for them. The tighter the job market, the more people leave and the worse the problem becomes. However, the state is working to turn this situation around. It has undertaken a major study aimed at determining not just where turnover problems exist but also where they are most costly. It is also attempting to bring employee salaries closer to market. The legislature has allocated some $12 million to that task. It’s only a fraction of the amount needed, but it’s a start. One more plus: The state has eliminated all central testing requirements and is moving toward an entirely paperless job-application system. MANAGING FOR RESULTS: C+ Once a real laggard in this area, Wyoming continues to move forward steadily, if unspectacularly. “We’ve made progress,” says Frank Galeotos, director of the Department of Administration and Information, “but we have a ways to go.” Early on, many agencies erred on the side of producing far too many outputs — potentially interesting information, but more data than could be utilized in any meaningful way. They’ve now pulled back on that effort and are concentrating on measurable outcomes. Unfortunately, the state doesn’t publish those outcomes in its annual budget document, and it’s weak in sharing the measures with stakeholders outside government. The state’s entity-wide strategic plan consists of broad goals and objectives, which are used to guide agencies in their own strategic planning. This effort is facilitated by Wyoming’s Department of Audit, which combs through agency plans to identify shortcomings. Agencies are forced to document that the accomplishments about which they’ve boasted are real. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: C- Wyoming’s legislature has never coughed up enough money to hire a CIO, although the state does have a five-member committee, appointed by the governor, that oversees the IT division. Agencies rarely share data with one another, managers can’t get data from centralized computers without going through the auditor’s office, and the very idea of checking on the performance of purchased computer systems is novel. This is the situation that confronted Frank Galeotos when he took over the state’s Department of Administration in 1999. While he doesn’t have the formal title of CIO, he appears to be assuming many of the functions of the job. Thanks, in part, to his efforts, the state’s leadership seems finally to accept the importance of standardized IT systems. It’ll be a while before many of the fruits of this labor are seen, but things are looking up. The leaders have created an Equality Network to provide data access to every school building in the state, and two-way interactive video to every high school. This has helped to deal with a 1995 court ruling, which found Wyoming’s public school funding to be unconstitutional. The program has now reached a dozen of the most remote areas of Wyoming. AVERAGE GRADE: C Copyright © 2001, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc.