Gov. rails against waste but finds it’s hard to pin down

Five years ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he would “blow up the boxes” of bureaucracy. But his fuse fizzled. Now he’s trying to shake up a few boxes.

Before requiring Californians to dig deeper for more money to mop up the state’s red ink, Schwarzenegger understands, he had better show them that he’s currently getting the most bang for their tax bucks.

“If I ask the people to go and to pay [higher] taxes,” the governor told reporters recently, “it’s the least thing that . . . in return we’re going to make government more efficient and we’re going to get rid of that waste and abuse and fraud and all of those kind of things.”

Ah, yes. The fabled waste, fraud and abuse -- so easy to flail, so hard to find.

In his first State of the State address, Schwarzenegger declared: “Every governor proposes moving boxes around to reorganize government. I don’t want to move boxes around. I want to blow them up.”

Schwarzenegger created the 275-member California Performance Review -- mostly state employees -- that produced a report the size of three city phone books. It recommended eliminating 118 boards and commissions, shifting most of their duties to the executive branch and abolishing 12,000 state jobs. Savings were pegged at $32 billion over five years.

Little came of it. Schwarzenegger now blames a rising economy that generated higher tax revenue and lulled the Legislature into inertia with no incentive to streamline government. But the inertia I recall was the governor’s. Schwarzenegger essentially shelved the report.

Now he’s back at the boxes, trying to consolidate some and dump others. He’s looking at 18 in all and annual savings of $126 million.

It’s much less ambitious. But, he figures, it’s the principle that matters. And every dollar counts these days.

Most of what Schwarzenegger is proposing makes good sense. Some seems senseless.

By far the biggest money-saver is the merging of four information technology offices into one box: an expanded office of the state chief information officer. The idea is to coordinate the state’s far-flung computer systems and leverage procurement power. The savings is estimated at $100 million the first year, growing to $1.5 billion over five.

“Today we have over 100 different e-mail systems,” says Teri Takai, the chief information officer, who was recruited from Michigan, where she overhauled that state’s computer network.

When she came to Sacramento last year and looked at California’s information technology, Takai says, this was what she saw: “It was as if you were bringing cable into your home and different companies were putting in different systems in each room.”

So that box-shuffling is a no-brainer.

But the next biggest proposed money-saver -- good for $17 million -- is clumsy, callous and counterproductive.

Schwarzenegger would abolish the venerable California Conservation Corps, created three decades ago by Gov. Jerry Brown. The corps turns around at-risk kids while turning them into minimum-wage firefighters, foresters and front-line troops at floods and mudslides.

In fact, 80 CCC crews fought wildfires for 141 straight days last year. They also set up evacuation centers, replanted hillsides, cleaned up oil spills and battled agriculture pests.

The CCC includes 1,300 young men and women, all volunteers.

The state promises to provide a dozen currently existing local corps with grants to take over the CCC’s mission. Pardon the skepticism. Anyway, these local corps are much smaller and generally don’t respond to disasters.

“It’s stupid,” says Barbara O’Connor, a member of the CCC foundation board and a Cal State Sacramento political science professor. “President Obama wants to put all that money into infrastructure and green jobs and workforce development. The CCC is the poster child for that, and it has a glorious legacy.”

The only rationale administration officials offer for killing the CCC is that the state is deeply in debt and it would save money. But would it? Probably not in the short run of more firestorms -- where CCC crews work cheap -- and definitely not in the long term.

Schwarzenegger also wants to scuttle the Department of Boating and Waterways and move its functions into the Department of Parks and Recreation. The savings would be dinghy-sized: $600,000.

As a small-boat owner, I don’t trust this move. The boating department has efficiently provided grants and loans for marine projects such as launching ramps and weed control. None of the dollars come from the hemorrhaging state general fund. They all derive from fuel taxes paid by boaters.

I fear the parks department would raid the boat money to repair picnic tables and the like.

Another entity Schwarzenegger wants to dump is the Integrated Waste Management Board, traditionally a soft landing spot for out-of-work politicians.

But since its creation about 20 years ago, the board has performed proficiently by overseeing California’s trash collection and moving steadily toward recycling.

California now leads the nation by recycling 58% of its waste.

Fine, says Victoria Bradshaw, the governor’s Cabinet secretary, who is overseeing the box shaking. The board was created to achieve 50% waste recycling and has reached its goal. Now, she contends, it’s time to disband and move the board’s functions into two executive branch departments.

Savings: More than $2 million annually.

Responds new board member Sheila Kuehl, a former Democratic state senator from Santa Monica: “The governor and others in his party don’t believe in regulation,” and if they’re in charge, “there’ll be no oversight at all. Our board is really independent.”

If Schwarzenegger moved every box he wanted, that would reduce the projected deficit from $41.6 billion to $41.5 billion.

So much for making ends meet by eradicating waste, fraud and abuse.

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george.skelton@latimes.com