From the Partnership's perspective, while government does not exist to make a profit (as private sector business does), there are certainly many opportunities to bring business principles into government. Streamlining operations to be more cost-effective, focus on strong customer service and eliminating waste are tried-and-true private sector strategies that are certainly applicable in government. While there's admittedly a trend (especially in New York State) toward big, expensive government, candidates with a plan to change that through instilling business principles deserve your attention.
The interesting thing to remember about government is that we - voters - are not only the "customer," but we're also the boss. And acting as the boss is where we can really bring business concepts into government - particularly in hiring. Every couple years, we get the opportunity to determine whether we want to re-hire someone who's already been on the job, or fire them and replace them with someone else (in business, we'd call this a "review"). Unfortunately, too many voters do not take this relationship, and the opportunity resulting from it, seriously.
This year, we are faced with some pretty poor examples of job performance in Albany. For the past two years since we've put the current group of elected officials into office, state government has done little beyond pushing its hand deeper and deeper into our pocket. Spending in two years has risen by $16 billion (yep - billion), with taxpayers footing the bill. Here in WNY, our elected reps failed to deliver (for perspective - labor and business both agree this is the case) a no-cost initiative that would've spurred 20,000 new jobs for our community - that being UB2020. The job just isn't getting done.
In the case of Senator Antoine Thompson, who faces a candidate in Rory Allen that we like a lot (small businessman, understands what it takes to create jobs and the impediments that Albany puts in the way of that) in next week's primary election, there's so much more. A taxpayer-funded trip to Jamaica during the legislative session that his staff was instructed to cover up?! Wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars sending ridiculous mailings (including birthday cards) to residents?! How about sponsoring legislation that would help Antoine, himself, benefit financially from a car accident he was in years earlier?! If you were the boss of a company, would you keep an employee like this? Well, we are the boss of the company called New York State government.
If we're going to instill one business principle into New York State government this year, it should be hiring and firing based on work performance and qualifications. Special interests continue to have success at putting people into office who will do their will because the largest special interest of all - taxpayers - don't take advantage of their role as boss. This is the year for voters, particularly Upstate voters, to demand better job performance. We do that at the polls.