New Vt State Fish,Wildlife and Lottery Commission

The Times Argus online unscientific poll asks: Do you understand Challenges for Change? Yes or No, this troubled me. Like Challenges for Change itself the poll limited its possible answers. As of early today the poll results show not surprisingly that just about a quarter of 300+ respondents say yes, they actually understand C for C.

Do those roughly 75 people that understand all work for Public Strategies Group or are some in the legislature?
Although sick of the race to the bottom aspect of the C for C I checked out the 47 page C for C pdf Progress Report.

The report details seven “First Wave” charter units, think of them as the shock troops for the CforC program.

What follows are some notes on Vermont's robust alternative planning:

Listed among three Challenge Outcomes and Proposed Measures for all “First Wave “ departments are these nuggets of managerial guidance and brilliance : Increase employees’ engagement in their work. After years of layoffs and threatened layoffs by Governor Douglas this could be a stand alone challenge.

Some specifics worth highlighting by dept. include
the Department of Liquor Control getting additional revenue for the general fund through increased sales. And a gift card program generating $50,000 in new revenue the first year of sales.

The Dept of Fish and Wildlife initiatives include Generate additional revenues by promoting the sale of Department merchandise such as t-shirts, mugs, hats, books, posters, patches and stamps
And finally this, which boggles the entrepreneurial imagination: if feasible, Fish and Wildlife should collaborate with VT Lottery Commission to develop new mutually beneficial products

Evslin’s Bureaucratic Cloud

"But this switch to web-based government, just like the switch to web-based flight reservations and banking, means better service to clients at lower cost to the service provider. Not too good to be true."

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas’ resident smart man, Tom Evslin,is still threatening Vermont with an earlier promise of a government that will be run just like web-based flight reservations and banking services. He has expanded on this theme lately and now highlights the wonder of ATMs and computerized bank records as examples of efficiency for state government. Another newly added folksy illustration of life after our technological revolution is how easy it will be to apply for a hunting/fishing license. (Currently Hunting /fishing licenses can easily be purchased at most general stores in Vermont.) Perhaps he’s keeping it simple out of consideration for those that don’t share his vision of Vermont “in the cloud.”

But once records become electronic, they're wherever you need them to be. It doesn't matter whether they're in a corporate data center, on a disk in a state office. or somewhere off in a huge computer center operated by Google or Amazon (technically this is called being "in the cloud"). When you need access to them, they're where you are. You can withdraw money from any ATM (at least if you don't mind fees); you can charge at any store; and you ought to be able to go into any government office to do whatever government business you need to do.

He never touches the potential problems with cloud storage of public records on systems accessible through Google or Amazon. Previously his performance at the Vermont State Recovery Office was rated 47th out of 50 at providing required public access to economic stimulus spending and contract bid information. Evslin is a smart fellow, yet he persists in making simple arguments for his brave new world, with only fleeting references to what he calls “current organizational constraints.” These constraints would surely involve “attendant discomforts, confusion, and fears,” but Evslin glosses over these specifics and proceeds speedily past. No reason to dwell on job and pay cuts.

Anyone with a minimum familiarity with web-based transactions knows the fur-balls that electronic data can cough up. I wish he trusted in his vision and Vermonters enough to raise the level of discussion above 1960’s Popular Science Magazine. Stop chatting up the wonder of a government as futuristic as ATMs and airline flight reservation systems. How about a discussion about who wins and who loses in your bureaucratic cloud? Get out from the closed door meetings and explain to Vermont citizens, (or clients as you call them) how these changes will challenge them.