Government Quality
Libertarians take note! It’s the quality of government that counts, not the size. You are confusing size with something else.
NM Rates B- in Pew Report
Alamogordo Daily News
By The Associated Press
Article Launched: 03/03/2008 12:49:56 PM MST
WASHINGTON New Mexico gets a B- in a new report that rates the effectiveness of all 50 of the nation’s state governments.
The Pew Center on the States report noted that at the moment, ”New Mexico has a fiscal advantage of most other states in the oil and gas money that flows into its coffers.” But it also said the state’s infrastructure has greater needs than most.
The ”Grading the States” report card was the fourth in a series of assessments issued by the center’s Government Performance Project and Governing Magazine. The last was released in 2005.
States were graded on recruitment and retention of qualified employees, use of information and technology, management of budgets and purchasing systems, and planning for improvements to roads, bridges and other core infrastructure. Rankings are based on reviews by a panel of state government experts.
The report particularly praised New Mexico for changing how its does capital spending.
New Mexico has taken strong steps in the past five years to address ”some of its most glaring management weaknesses, including what may have been the worst method of capital spending of any state in the country,” the report said.
The state had no centralized infrastructure planning, simply dividing capital funds into three equal portions one each for the governor, House and Senate. Gov. Bill Richardson began working to reserve more money for strategic purposes, and this year, he and lawmakers agreed to set aside about $300 million for long-term goals, the Pew Center said. ”Negotiating in this fashion, project by project, is far from the best way to handle capital planning,” the report said. ”But it’s a big improvement over what New Mexico did for decades.”
In addition, major state agencies have been assigned planning responsibilities and have been charged with fulfilling a part of the state’s strategic plan, and the state consolidated information technology services, the report said.
Gov. Bill Richardson said Monday the report shows that the state is on the right track to create a more efficient, less costly state government.
