January 22, 2009

Governor Markell Launches ‘Honest Assessment’ of State Spending and Practices

Delaware Government Performance Review First Endeavor of Initiative

DOVER -- To tackle a historic budget challenge and deliver efficient and effective government services, Governor Jack Markell on Thursday launched his ‘Honest Assessment’ of state government. The assessment is a series of initiatives that will examine how the government spends taxpayer dollars, how to effectively measure agencies’ performance, how to identify innovation and how to best meet the significant challenges facing Delaware.

“We are facing the largest budget shortfall in Delaware’s history. There are no easy answers, but there are honest ones,” Gov. Markell said. “We must be open about our challenges and honest about our efforts to solve them if we are going to tackle the budget crisis and get our economy moving again. We can and must take a systemic approach to making government more efficient, effective, responsive and responsible.”

The Delaware Government Performance Review is the first initiative of the “Honest Assessment.” The review, which began shortly after the Governor was sworn in Wednesday, will be led by the Office of Management and Budget Director Ann Visalli. Business leaders from around the region will join more than a dozen top-notch public servants who will identify what works best in government, what could be made to work better and how to spend taxpayer dollars as effectively and efficiently as possible.

The Government Performance Review will examine every department and division to identify their goals and missions, interview staff to help unleash new innovations, identify and analyze practices for possible improvement and focus on how existing policies could be made more cost-effective. The program will leverage best policy practices from the public and private sectors both inside and outside the state.

“During the town hall meetings we held in each county, so many state employees came through with solid ideas for improvement. We can unleash that innovation to help reduce our costs,” Markell said. “This is a large scale effort to look for even small potential savings opportunities so we can ensure that taxpayers are best served.”

Suzanne Peck, a native Delawarean who led a similar effort for Pennsylvania Gov Ed Rendell and is currently the Chief Information Officer for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, has volunteered to help lead the review. Before joining WMATA, Peck spent eight years as the District of Columbia's Chief Technology Officer.