The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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November 28, 2009

Our View: Entrepreneural government needed

There’s been plenty of generalized government employee bashing lately on the national, state and local levels. Government bureaucrats, it seems, are the root of all the world’s problems.

These kind of “government is always incompetent” arguments continue to crop up in the health care reform debate. But there are currents of this distrust, even anger, running through state issues like balancing the state budget and local issues like spending money on parks and trails.

Two problems show their face through these arguments: Government hasn’t been very good at P.R. (or public relations) despite all the good it accomplishes, and government has to come up with more creative, innovative solutions.

In short, we need entrepreneurs in government, entrepreneurs motivated by public good and taxpayer value rather than profit. That may mean doing more with less, but more important, it may mean doing something different, ignoring mandates that don’t make sense anymore.

Should snowplow drivers be “guaranteed” 40 hours of work even if it doesn’t snow? Must sex offenders go unchecked because police will be busy doing the rest of their job? Do fewer resources mean fewer services in every case?

A government driven by entrepreneurial ideas would figure out ways of prioritizing government services. It would focus on providing high value services in connection with the skills of government employees and job out the rest. Certainly, the skills of a sheriff’s deputy reach beyond that of serving legal papers.

Some units of government are considering doing things differently. Schools in Madelia and Sleepy Eye are thinking of instituting new calendars to help them maximize learning and lower costs. Sleepy Eye is going so far as to join with other school districts to petition the Legislature to allow changes to the start of school calendars. While we’re on the subject of the Legislature, holding fast to such calendar mandates, and dozens of others put on counties, doesn’t make sense.

If the Legislature wants — and it must — to be part of the new entrepreneurial government, it must be willing to remove one-size-fits-all rules like schools being required to start after Labor Day.

Another example of an entrepreneurial government program is one that leverages federal health care money to get low-income people at high risk for cancer the necessary colonoscopy. Traditional government might just say there’s not enough money for health insurance for the poor. But this program, operating locally and sponsored by Sen. Kathy Sheran, worked in an “entrepreneurial” way. It reduced the government’s costs of treating colon cancer by catching it early.

Moving forward, government must act creatively and innovatively. The challenges will be many and the funds will be low.

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