Governor Mistakes

Governor Fletcher? Here's a 30 year career state employee's recap of "political hindsight" your young staff ought to be concerned about. Your mantra was "clean up the mess in Frankfort" and this Governor's was "run state like a business". This information is volunteered to aid your strategist to develop a well thought out and executed plan to be able to become reelected due to fulfilling your "clean up the mess" in Frankfort. I had an advantage of preparing having been serving in the "field force" of Dept of Revenue when "run state government as a business" Governor---John Y. Brown---was elected. One of Brown's mistakes was his arrogant staffers who thought they knew it all not asking for assistance from those state workers who had been there and done that! Brown's staffers were convinced they could run state government like a business! Therefore, why ask those dumb state workers who are lazy and take daily naps! They did not know these lazy, sleepy overweight employees knew where the political and administrative pitfalls were! All his staffers had to do was ask. However, when his staffers became too busy as they cut up the political jobs for Brown appointees the career state employees just stepped back and watched them hang themselves! First thing is one does not run state as a business. Businesses can go belly up financially...not state government! If state government financially bellies up the pain and havoc heaped on it's citizens would be awesome! So their reason for existing was completely incorrect! Brown's attitude and his aspiring staff persons did not realize some state employees have forgotten more about state government than they'll ever know. For example, in another state agency other than Revenue where I worked, a friend had an advantage in another wherein over any incoming Brown staffer in that this friend had been working on a budget of approximately $30,000,000 prior to Brown's election. One of Brown's mistakes was about 2 months before massive layoffs Governor Brown held a meeting for all state employees at the Civic Center. He informed all attendees "If you come to work on time and do your job, you don't have to worry about layoffs." That turned out to be a lie because he promised something he obviously could not deliver. Do you remember the letter you mailed during your campaign to all state employees assuring them of certain things in the state workplace if you were elected? Get that letter out and sleep with it under your pillar at night and every opportunity you get reiterate to state employees you're going to deliver what you said in that letter. Publish it on the state's website! Another Brown mistake was the way Governor Brown tried to hire his friends. According to my friend who was in a much better position to know than I, he said a lot of the units that Governor Brown eliminated in his "reorganization" plan were 100% federally funded. He tried to replace these programs with personal service contracts to his political contributors. That's a big no-no! Many of the other functions Governor Brown eliminated were 75% federally funded. These had to be replaced with 100% state funded programs. If you owned a private business and ran it this way, how many days could you go before filing bankruptcy?

Governor Brown wrote an article which he planned to be published in Reader's Digest to launch the drive for him to be President of the US and Phyllis George Brown to be a "famous" first lady. (At a Christmas Parade in Frankfort, Phyllis told some of the crowd how lucky they were to have a famous first lady.) Most of state employees who were laid off in my friend's state agency were some of the brightest and most productive. My friend's job was so complicated they left him on and he eventually was promoted to work directly for his division director. His director told him "the jobs that you are doing are so damned complicated, they couldn't figure out any way to replace you." After layoffs Brown administration purposely brought in new people and promoted existing employees into key technical positions who had no knowledge or aptitude for the jobs they were supposed to do. Many people who were laid off couldn't get another job right away and had to withdraw their retirement funds to live on. Many state government functions Governor Brown eliminated ended up costing Kentucky taxpayers millions more in state tax dollars and one could argue contributed to Kentucky's almost continuous budget deficits! One good example of causing harm by cutting out needed and valuable services could be found in the Aeronautic Section of the Transportation Cabinet. The Brown administration tried to abolish the Materials Testing Division in the Transportation Cabinet. This division is essential. They test the materials before they are put into bridges and highways. They are very cost effective and get things done on time. The chief engineers in the Transportation Cabinet were not even told what their budget was. Governor's Brown's Louisville appointees kept this information secret from them. Defining “Frankfort mess” as past Kentucky stewards having “credit cart mentality” spending more tax dollars than state was taking in and deliberately choosing to cover deficits by raiding Kentucky’s Road Fund. Such irresponsible spending has resulted in Kentucky’s current deficit dilemma. To bring Kentucky’s spending and income policies into sync all Kentucky tax subsidies and tax breaks allowed Corporations for doing business in Kentucky are to be reviewed with an eye towards eliminating all counterproductive tax breaks and SUBSIDIES. Examine ways to eliminate past “credit card mentality” spending policies since it has been knows since 1994 Kentucky’s average growth rate of state expenditures was 6% compared with the average growth rate of state tax revenues of 5.3%. If current Kentucky stewards continue this kind of economic policy by 2010 Kentucky’s economy will be much larger than it’s ability to meet it’s financial obligations. During 1980’s and 1990s Kentucky kept spending more tax dollars than it collected. With acquiescence among majority of general assembly members who did not want to vote a tax increase to cover their spending, opted instead to balance state budget by diverting road funds to cover Kentucky’s General Fund deficits. The executive director of Kentuckians For Better Transportation wrote in 1995 Lexington Herald “$60 million of Road Fund dollars were diverted to cover General Fund deficits. In addition, another $92 million was diverted to cover General Fund deficits as well as another $85 million going to the State Police. Seven million of the $85 million was sales

tax revenues on motor fuels that always was considered Road Fund dollars. During the Jones Administration $150 million was diverted”---a record amount to the General Fund to cover General Fund deficits; i.e., $394 million tax dollars. L.H., 1/16/95, page A7 Here’s a recent newspaper article devoted to highlighting Governor John Y. Brown’s mishandling stewardship role as Governor. John Y. Brown (by Ralph Long) Ralph Long over at Long Way Home posted the type of thoughtful piece on John Y. Brown's recent comments on Fletcher, Stumbo, and the merit system that you don't find in the newspapers. I'm reprinting it in full: John Y. and the Wayback Machine My friend Chris called yesterday and wanted to know why I hadn’t posted anything lately. Well the answer is I’ve been busy. Chris and I have known each other since our days at the University of Kentucky. Chris, a Kentuckian by birth and a West Virginian by choice, is one of those guys that has known you so long that he remembers things about you that you have forgotten or a least claim you have forgotten. So for Chris today we are going to jump into the Wayback Machine and take a look at the political myopia that sometimes occurs when politicians look at their career. From today’s Herald Leader former Gov. John Y. Brown speaking about the Fletcher merit system scandal: “Brown said he doesn't fault the Fletcher administration because previous governors had well-established patronage systems to reward supporters. But, he said, his administration was an exception. Brown said he never hired anyone for political reasons while he was governor, from 1979 to 1983.” Isn’t the myopic haze of time a wonderfully convenient, particularly when a reporter writes a puff piece like this? For those of you too young or too cloudy of mind to remember John Y. came into office with the Republican sounding slogan of “Run it like a business”. The slogan was Johnny Boy’s equivalent of Ernie’s “Waste, Fraud and Abuse”. Every administration needs a good slogan. Of course John Y. did run it like a business, except that business was run by the administration appointees and not John Y. Brown. When it came to making decisions Johnny Boy delegated, except maybe for buying a new helicopter, or screwing up the budget by passing out money he didn’t have and leaving the Collins administration to clean up the mess, but those are rants for another time.

Remarks made at the 20th Anniversary of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence by Robert F. Sexton, Executive Director, in June 7, 2003 pretty well sum up what a lot of people thought of the Brown administration. “Dot Ridings remembered that John Y. Brown, the governor, came to Shakertown for one of our meetings in 1981. We always invited the governor and the governor always showed up. But Prichard never made a secret of the fact that he thought John Y. Brown didn’t pay enough attention to things that were really important. (Dot was being diplomatic. Prichard thought Brown had no personal interest in education at all. He said — this wasn’t private, it was in the paper —‘he hasn’t read a book since Babar the Elephant.’) On this particular occasion the governor flew into Shakertown in his helicopter and landed on the grounds outside where we were meeting. He came in with his entourage and made his remarks and told us we were doing good work. We told him that we wanted some more stuffout of him, and he said he’d think about it. He was about to make his exit when the heavens opened up with rain, thunder and lightning. John Y. and his entourage fled upstairs, and a few minutes later one of his staff came down and said the governor was going to come back down himself and stay for a while since he couldn’t leave. Then, Dot said, Prich leaned over to her and said “It’s an act of God! ‘ ” The Brown administration instituted the current Cabinet system of organization in state government. The organization was a six by six design, no person supervised more that six people and there were no more than six levels of supervision between the Governor and the lowest ranking employee. Since John Boy was pretty hands off, the folks under him used the reorganization of state government to settle a lot of old scores. Obviously our reporter on this story failed to mention the number of state employees laid off, all of which were reinstated by the court system. From the Herald Leader: “Past administrations have also stumbled over personnel issues. An ethics commission fined former Gov. Paul Patton for some of his hiring practices. Mass layoffs under Gov. John Y. Brown Jr. led to numerous lawsuits in the early 1980s.” Now Brown may never have personally pulled strings for a political appointee, but his administration was certainly not the Camelot he would lead us to believe posted by Ralph Long @ 11:29 AM Posted by Mark Nickolas on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 at 03:21 PM in Mess In Frankfort | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)