washingtontimes.com/metro/20050130-103554-6800r.htm
RICHMOND Virginia is at the top of the class nationally in a just-finis hed survey of the nation's best-managed states by the Government Perform ance Project. Virginia and Utah were the only states to score overall A grades in t he GPP's "Grading the States 2005" report, a comprehensive, independent assessment of how well each state is managed. But Virginia was the only state to score A's in all four categories, the average of which determines the overall grade.
The GPP is an initiative of the University of Richmond and is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit and nonpartisan public-issues research organization based in Philadelphia. Maryland earned a B and was praised in the report as a "national lead er" in managing projects to improve the state's infrastructure. This year's report marks the third time the GPP has graded the states , and the results are being published in the February issue of Governing magazine. A team of academics and journalists who spent more than a year doing research for the project singled out Virginia's money management, Georgi a's human-resources policies, and Utah's infrastructure maintenance for particular praise. The report cited as a national example the state's 2002 law requiring six-year budget forecasts, describing it as a saving grace for a state in which governors serve for only four years. "Outsiders might wonder how the only state that bars its governor fro m seeking re-election could provide its administrations with sufficient clout to make difficult decisions. But consistently it does," the study' s summary of Virginia says. "Virginia has an ethos of good management th at has genuinely been institutionalized." Virginia has received high marks for its management before. In 1992 a nd 1993, Financial World magazine ranked Virginia as the nation's best-m anaged state. This year's report criticized the 1998 car-tax cut and its architect, former Gov. It blamed the increment al, five-year rollback of the locally assessed tax on personal automobil es for "opening a $1 billion budget shortfall" and called it "politicall y popular but fiscally unsound." The car-tax cut, still only 70 percent complete, obligates the state to repay cities and counties for their lost tax collections. Virginia got an A grade in the money-management category and A-minus grades in the three other management categories: people, infrastructure and information. "Historically, one of Virginia's few management trouble spots has bee n its Department of Transportation," the report said. It noted that fewe r than 20 percent of VDOT's projects were completed on schedule four yea rs ago compared with the present, with two-thirds of the projects due to finish on time and 90 percent within budget. The lowest overall grades nationally went to Alabama and California, each of which scored a C-minus. Among the four categories, Maryland scored best in "infrastructure" an A-minus and was praised as doing a "good job of thinking ahead" an d being a national leader in using "strategic planning techniques for it s infrastructure." The report mentioned Maryland's unified five-year plan, in which "a t horough system of project-monitoring helps the state keep its constructi on initiatives on time and within budget." By emphasizing quality contro l before starting projects, Maryland also was lauded for keeping costly change orders down in recent years. But Maryland was scolded because funding for maintenance was "lagging behind in most areas." The state has an operating maintenance backlog o f $37 million, and a capital maintenance backlog of $68 million. "Over t he last five years, appropriations have not kept pace with need," the re port said. Maryland scored a B in the money category, in part because of its use of consensus forecasting to estimate revenues, a close-to-fully-funded state pension fund, a strong credit rating, and an ability to maintain " a healthy balance in its budget-stabilization fund even during periods o f budget shortfall." In the "people" category, the state got a B-minus, with praise for st reamlining the hiring of workers in areas with shortages. For instance, managers are allowed to hire nurses on the spot, with background checks performed later, the report said. But Maryland came up short in several areas, earning a C-plus in the information category. Maryland was one of the first states in the country to set up a "perf ormance-based budgeting" program in 1997, and "was primed for a new proc ess of integrating performance information with the budget process and l inking data with budget decisions. But the promise," the report says, "w as never fulfilled."
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