by James A. Bacon
The Governor’s Office under Glenn Youngkin grew staff from 51 under former Governor Ralph Northam to 79 by the end of fiscal 2023, and increased spending on salaries from $3.7 million to $6.5 million, finds an audit by the Auditor of Public Accounts.
Cue the partisan sniping.
“His actions don’t add up to his rhetoric,” Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, chairman of the Senate Committee on General Laws and Technology, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in referring to Youngkin’s claims to have made state government more efficient. “This is not a transformational governorship that requires a transformational staff.”
How, exactly, do Youngkin’s actions fall short of rhetoric? Details, please, Mr. Ebbin.
It turns out, as Michael Martz reports a bit lower in the story, that the apparent growth in the Governor’s Office staff and spending can be attributed mainly to (1) pay raises enacted by the General Assembly; (2) new staff authorized at the initiative of the General Assembly, such as for the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (renamed Diversity, Opportunity & Inclusion); and (3) the hiring of a Chief Transformation Officer and staff.
In other words, the primary spending increase that can be pinned on Youngkin was the hiring of a Chief Transformation Officer and staff. The only meaningful question raised by the numbers is this: has the Chief Transformation Officer paid his way?
The Youngkin administration claims to have saved Virginia citizens more than $1.2 billion by streamlining some 50,000 regulatory requirements. One might think that a story worthy of attention.
Here are some of the administration’s more noteworthy efficiency initiatives:
- Improving permit, license, certification, and registration processes to reduce wait times and cost;
- Creating a centralized platform, the Virginia Permit Transparency website, to track the daily status and timeline of critical steps for permits at six state agencies;
- Implementing a first-in-the-nation, data-driven approach — Stand Tall – Stay Strong – Succeed Together — to supporting prison inmates’ reentry into society. As of August, the administration claims that the initiative helped more than 3,000 returning Virginians gain employment and more than 7,000 obtain health insurance;
- Streamlining the intake process for unemployment applications and reducing the massive Virginia Employment Commission backlog that built up during the COVID epidemic;
- Reducing waiting times and achieving other operational improvements at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The Auditor’s report doesn’t say how much the Office of the Chief Transformation Officer costs to maintain, but it does lump it in with the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion as accounting for $2.8 million in General Fund appropriations. The audit also reveals the expenditure of $2.1 million in “contractual services,” the accounting bucket that would include payments to consultants. Let’s guesstimate that the Governor’s Office spent $3 million to $4 million per year on efficiency initiatives.
Balance that against the putative $1.2 billion in savings (most of which, presumably, accrue to the benefit of Virginia citizens, not state government, although the figure is unclear).
It is human nature to claim maximum credit for one’s efforts, so one might legitimately inquire how Team Youngkin derived that $1.2 billion number. Would a more realistic number be lower? We count on the loyal opposition and the media to hold governors of either party accountable for puffery when boasting about their accomplishments.
But Ebbin’s snide comment, which was probably an impromptu response to a reporter’s question, is clearly out of line. And the Times-Dispatch’s framing of the story through headline selection (“Governor’s office grows, as Youngkin pushes state efficiency”) and graphic (displayed above) isn’t much better.
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