There's actually talk in the legislature of eliminating around 300 middle-management and P.R. flack jobs from the state employment rolls. On the other hand, they also want to close a minimum-security prison at the cost of another 100 or so jobs, so their priorities aren't exactly on the bubble. Still, by identifying the fact that they have far too many middle-management and PR slots being taken up, they're at least moving in the right direction: those positions tend to pile up like deadwood in a freshet, and historical experience has demonstrated that the more middle managers and PR flacks an agency acquires, the less effective it becomes.
They've made a good start, and in the right places - but there will still be far too many middle managers and PR types working for the state, so they need to go further; their proposal cuts only about 1% of the state workforce, which is insignificant in terms of fiscal policy.
Middle managers live for meetings and turf protection; as a general rule, productivity (and often, staff morale) suffers with each managerial addition. Unfortunately, government agencies live for aggrandizement, and the more managers they have, the more important they believe themselves to be.
What they need to do is fairly straightforward: they need to hire a gardener. A good gardener can identify and prune out dead wood.
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